Two new annual reports released by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reaffirm agency milestones in its stockpile and nonproliferation operations and highlight infrastructure investments, the proposed termination of the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel approach, and departmental reorganizations as recent internal areas of focus.
The fiscal 2017 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan noted no significant changes since last year’s report and said the warhead life-extension programs and stockpile stewardship activities are “progressing on or ahead of schedule,” with no changes in life-extension program schedules.
One of the changes since last year’s plan involves an increase in the dismantlement rate for retired nuclear warheads that will start in fiscal 2018 to successfully complete dismantlement by fiscal 2021, while another involves a funding decrease for research and development related to stockpile services supporting weapons work due to a “narrowing of technology development efforts to allow for increased investment in critical infrastructure,” the report said.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in April 2015 that the U.S. had dismantled over 10,000 warheads over the last 20 years and would dismantle warheads retired by fiscal 2009 – out of the remaining 2,500 in the dismantlement queue – at a 20 percent accelerated rate. The NNSA’s fiscal 2017 budget request included $69 million to meet this commitment and complete the dismantlement work one year earlier than originally anticipated, in fiscal 2021. The latest NNSA report noted that while the agency fell behind schedule in fiscal 2015 on its dismantlement goals due to safety reviews, lightning events, and the Pantex Plant worker strike, it plans to hire and train weapons dismantlement technicians in fiscal 2017 and increase the dismantlement rate starting in fiscal 2018.
Capital construction will be a short-term focus for the NNSA, the report said. Projects include emergency operations centers at the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories; electrical distribution system projects at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs, as well as the Nevada National Security Site; and a new fire station at Y-12 to support emergency response capabilities. The report also noted that the NNSA intends to end enriched uranium programmatic operations in Y-12 Building 9212 and complete the Uranium Processing Facility at the site for up to $6.5 billion by 2025.
The report also called for continued investment in new technologies for the certification of warheads and modernization of aging nuclear infrastructure, along with the “preservation and transfer of institutional and technical knowledge prior to the exodus of retirement-eligible members” from the nuclear enterprise. This challenge extends to the recruitment and retention of computer science talent to address the simulation needs of the stockpile stewardship program. Acknowledging the competition between lab recruitment and industries that often offer higher compensation, the report said NNSA labs still have an advantage in their cutting-edge technology.
The NNSA released a second report, its Strategic Plan to Reduce Global Nuclear Threats from fiscal 2017-2021. One of the primary changes since the last report involves the Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 proposal to cancel the MOX project in favor of a different dilution and disposal approach for surplus U.S. weapon-usable plutonium. According to the report, in fiscal 2017 the DOE would begin conceptual design for a new dilution and disposal approach, continue developing a life-cycle baseline for the program, conduct studies on optimizing the final waste form, and conduct environmental analyses on the impact of the project at “an appropriate facility.” It noted that the NNSA will also develop a plan for the proposed termination of the MOX project in fiscal 2017, seek Critical Decision-1 approval to “begin preliminary design for the plutonium dilution and disposal line item construction project at the Savannah River Site” in fiscal 2018, and terminate the MOX project by fiscal 2021.
Other changes in the latest report involve the establishment of an Emergency Incident Management Council to help the DOE “prepare for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from all-hazards emergencies,” and the reorganization of the NNSA’s Office of Emergency Operations and Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation. Nuclear and radiological crisis operations were transferred from the former office, now focused on an “enterprise-wide approach to emergency management,” to the latter, which created an Office of Nuclear Incident Response to manage programs for responding to nuclear and radiological incidents worldwide.
These changes, the report said, are meant to increase coordination to address “all-hazard emergencies and major disruptions to our nation’s energy system” and “consolidate all threat assessment and incident response assets involving nuclear and radiological material and facilities.”
Outlining upcoming NNSA milestones, the report said the agency seeks to remove 7,000 kilograms of nuclear material around the world by 2022; upgrade security at over 4,000 radiological buildings by 2033; develop advanced technologies for warhead and fissile material transparency and verification regimes between fiscal 2017 and 2021; and train almost 15,000 officials worldwide in weapons of mass destruction counterterrorism prevention and response by fiscal 2020.
