Publications: ExchangeMonitor Morning Briefing

Flight tests for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent missile, the planned successor to the nuclear-tipped Minuteman III, are scheduled to start in fiscal year 2024, according to a Pentagon environmental review of the new weapons. The service proposes four Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) flight tests from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in fiscal […]

BWX Technologies, the Lynchburg, Va.-based nuclear contractor for the Department of Energy and the Pentagon, on Monday posted a record $557 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020, up 11% from the $501 million in the 2019 period. In addition, BWXT’s net income for the fourth quarter was $65.7 million, or $0.69 per […]

The Senate has set up a vote this week on Jennifer Granholm’s nomination to be secretary of energy, following a procedural step on Monday. Around 4 p.m. Eastern time, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D) filed cloture on Granholm’s nomination, effectively signalling the start of a brief period of debate that typically lasts no longer […]

Germantown, Md.-based Amentum recently marked its first full year as a privately-held company after being spun off by Los Angeles-based AECOM. On Jan. 31, 2020, AEMCOM closed on the $2.4 billion sale of its AECOM Management Services division to affiliates of New York-based investment firms Lindsay Goldberg and American Securities LLC. The new owners re-christened […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons assembly hub in Texas was scheduled for more or less back to normal operations on Monday after asking non-essential personnel to remain home for most of last week during Texas’ disastrous deep freeze. “Pantex operations are back to normal schedule today,” a spokesperson for the Bechtel National-led plant […]

As of December, roughly 70% or 11.2 million of the 16 million tons of contaminated debris and soil had been hauled away from an old uranium mill outside Moab, Utah, according to data released by the Department of Energy last week in for a new contract for the project. The DOE in February released its […]

Here are some public events related to defense- and civilian-nuclear matters that the ExchangeMonitor staff is tracking this week. February 22 BWX Technologies releases its quarterly results after the market closes at 4 p.m. Eastern time. 22-23 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Merits and Viability of Different Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Technology Options and the […]

After winter weather crippled many parts of Texas’ electricity grid, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons maintenance hub near Amarillo, Texas, decided to keep some personnel home during the first three days of this week. “In order to reduce energy consumption during the unprecedented winter storm impacting the Amarillo area, Pantex cancelled day, swing, […]

In the midst of a winter weather emergency that left millions without power and caused a nuclear plant to shut down in the Lone Star State, Waste Control Specialists’ waste storage site experienced no problems, a spokesman said Wednesday. A representative for the 1,338-acre storage facility in Andrews County, Texas told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing […]

The Department of Energy this morning posted virtual site tour documents and other background material on its solicitation for a potential $614-million small business set-aside for the Moab Remedial Action Contract in Utah. The DOE Office of Environmental Management released its final request for proposals Feb. 11 for the work that includes cleanup of a […]

A New Mexico Senate committee on Tuesday passed a bill that would create a statewide task force to negotiate with the federal government over the siting of nuclear-waste storage sites in the Land of Enchantment. The state Senate Conservation Committee passed SB 82, introduced by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), on a 5-2 vote and […]

An article in the Feb. 16 edition of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“New Mexico Hearing on WIPP Shaft Set for May”) should have said that May 17 is the date for the hearing on the planned new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.

The Joe Biden administration ought to look at undoing the legal deadlines the National Nuclear Security Administration faces to begin production of new nuclear weapon triggers, a former senior official with the agency said Wednesday. “I think the administration needs to look at how those statutory timelines really line up to the programmatically driven timelines […]

Randall Hendrickson is now the deputy chief of corporate services at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management, according to the latest organizational chart dated Feb. 11. The job, which reports to the Environmental Management (EM) office’s associate principal deputy assistant secretary Dae Chung, was vacant as recently as Jan. 28, according to prior […]

A major environmental group asked a judge to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to reconsider a basket of objections to the licensing of an interim storage site, including one the agency initially acted on, according to court filings last week. Sierra Club filed a petition Feb. 9 in D.C.’s Ninth Circuit court to reopen nine […]

The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico received 20 shipments of transuranic waste during January, which represents its highest monthly total since October, according to the facility’s online waste information database. There were 12 shipments from the Idaho National Laboratory and eight from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. […]

The Washington Department of Ecology is taking public comment through March 25 on proposed modifications to the state’s permit for key equipment used to help control liquid waste volume in underground tanks at the Department of Energy’s Hanford site. The original transfer lines that connect double-shell tanks holding radioactive waste to the 242-A Evaporator flunked […]

A story in the Feb. 09, 2021 issue of Weapons Complex Morning Briefing (“Jacobs’ Profits Edge Up in Q1; Revenue Stable”) should have said that Jacobs’ profits increased in the first quarter of 2021 on both an adjusted and unadjusted basis. The story was also updated with the correct earnings figures for each period.

Northrop Grumman “successfully conducted its first major design review” for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent engineering and manufacturing development baseline last November, the company announced Tuesday. Northrop touted the milestone as the new Joe Biden administration prepares its first federal budget request and Congress continues its work confirming Biden’s nominees to top Pentagon posts. A […]

The Senate Armed Services strategic forces committee will retain some of its nuclear backbone in the 117th Congress with Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), who has a major nuclear constituency in the form of the Triad’s land-based leg, retaining her leadership role. That’s less nuclear leadership than the panel, which writes policy for nuclear forces and […]

A building that handles high explosives at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, briefly shut down earlier this month after a worker’s dosimeter showed up with an unusually high dose — after it was “inadvertently lost” in the facility by its wearer, a spokesperson for the plant said Tuesday. “It is believed that the employee’s […]

A New Jersey district court judge signed a settlement Feb. 9 ending a legal feud between Holtec International and Lacey Township, N.J., over fuel from the Oyster Creek Generating Station, according to court papers. Judge Michael A. Shipp signed the order, setting the stage for Holtec to move forward with the decommissioning of Oyster Creek, […]

The New Mexico Environment Department plans consider the Department of Energy’s plan to sink a new utility shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in a Zoom hearing on May 17, an environmental activist told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The first day of the hearing will run from 12 noon through 4 p.m. Mountain Time […]

President Joe Biden’s nomination of David Turk to be the deputy secretary of energy was formally sent to the Senate late Thursday and referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The Senate was not in session Monday due to the Presidents Day holiday and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had not […]

A Tennessee environmental group is not planning to sue the National Nuclear Security Administration again over the Uranium Processing Facility, despite reserving the right to do so in a recent court filing. “[W]e have no plans at the current time to file additional litigation,” Ralph Hutchison,  coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, wrote […]

By April, both of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s next-generation plutonium-pit factories should reach the critical decision 1 milestone that solidifies the long-conceptualized designs of the facilities intended to manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores for most of this century. The semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency is planning the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project at the Los […]