Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

A federal judge is not pulling the plug yet on Nevada’s lawsuit to have a half-metric ton of plutonium trucked out of the state, despite the Department of Energy’s repeated requests to dismiss the case. The U.S. District Court for Nevada has scheduled a teleconference for March 12 to discuss the state’s desire to conduct […]

In what could be the final brief before an appeals panel rules on the case, South Carolina hammered home its argument that federal law does not prohibit the Department of Energy from paying $200 million in fines after blowing a legal deadline to remove plutonium from the state. South Carolina is appealing the case after […]

Constellis, the Reston, Va.-based parent of U.S. Energy Department contractor Centerra Group, has reached a “forbearance agreement” with certain creditors in order to get some leeway on loan repayment while it works to shore up its balance sheet. “Constellis recently closed on a $110 million delayed-draw credit facility provided by a subset of its existing […]

An article in the Jan. 10 issue of Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, “Pit TRU Waste Would Take Up Half of Available WIPP Space Over 50 Years, NNSA Says,” should have said remarks by Todd Shrader of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management were delivered in June 2018.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico still plans this year to begin the next round of subcritical plutonium experiments, a series dubbed Nightshade. “In order to accommodate ongoing experiment preparation, facility work, and other programmatic priorities the Laboratory is planning to execute the Nightshade A SCE [subcritical experiment] in […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) this week moved to extend its contract with the panel of scientists known as JASON for up to a year, while the Pentagon works to resurrect its old arrangement with the group. Also this week, the JASON team endorsed a plan for the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear […]

The U.S. Air Force officially ended the B52-H’s mission to carry nuclear gravity bombs late last year, according to an updated operating military manual making the rounds online this week. Air Force Instruction 91-111, dated Sept. 5, calls for “removal of B61-7 and B83-1 from B-52H approved weapons configuration.” Hans Kristensen, the Washington-based director of […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would not rule out the possibility here Thursday that one of two planned production plants could independently supply all the fissile nuclear-weapon cores initially required for planned refurbishments of the nation’s nuclear weapons. “[W]e are not looking at [using] one exclusive of […]

The U.S. Department of Energy has doubled down in the new year on its refusal to accept a safety recommendation from the Defense Nuclear Faciliites Safety Board (DNFSB) regarding tritium facilities at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. “[T]he Savannah River Tritium Enterprise (SRTE) provides adequate protection of the public and worker safety,” Lisa […]

NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Leveraging resources from U.S. Department of Energy contractors and research universities will be a key part of the inaugural stand-alone management and operations contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), DOE Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar said Thursday. The Energy Department is planning for a contract that would separate the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans a somewhat expedited environmental review of its plan to convert a partially built plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., into a plutonium-pit factory, according to a decision posted online this week. The agency has studied since June whether it must complete a brand new environmental […]

The power substation that will route electricity to the Uranium Processing Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is finished, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. The Tennessee Valley Authority designed and built the $60 million substation, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency wrote in a press release on Monday. Aspects of the substation have irked […]

In a New Year’s boon for Belgium’s Institute for Radioelements, the Department of Energy has postponed by two years a ban on exporting U.S.-origin, weapon-usable uranium for the production of medical isotopes, agency head Dan Brouillette told Congress. “[C]urrent global supplies of Mo-99 [Molybdenum 99] produced without the use of HEU [highly enriched uranium] are […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory has traced an unprecedented radioactive leak during an explosive plutonium test in 2019 to a breached diagnostic port in the steel container that housed the subcritical experiment, a lab spokesperson said this week. “A diagnostic port was momentarily displaced due to the dynamic pressure exerted on the confinement vessel during […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan to produce 80 pits a year would generate more than 1,110 cubic meters of transuranic waste a year, according to an environmental review the semiautonomous Department of Energy weapon steward released this week. Over 50 years — enough time at an 80-a-year throughput to produce two new pits, and […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration will postpone by months its decision about which of two technologies will power the next U.S. defense-uranium enrichment facility. “NNSA recently notified Congress that it intends to complete its Analysis of Alternatives for supply of unobligated enriched uranium by mid-to-late FY2020,” an agency spokesperson wrote in a Thursday email, responding […]

MOX Services, prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), played fast and loose with federal contracting rules, the U.S. Department of Energy’s inspector general wrote in a scathing report published days before the winter holidays. The audit, which focused on MOX Services’ administration of project subcontractors, identified some $8.5 million in questionable […]

The U.S. Navy on Dec. 16 awarded General Dynamics Mission Systems a $300 million sole-source contract for fiscal years 2020-2023 for U.S. and U.K. Trident II D-5 support work. This specifically covers Trident II fleet ballistic missiles submarine fire control system, guided missile submarine attack weapon control system, and support equipment rework facility support. Most […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear production complex awakens in earnest from a post-Cold War slumber in the 2020s, and the agency has a year of stable funding to launch a decade in which a major foreign policy decision could change the tack of the ongoing U.S. nuclear modernization program. It is, of course, a […]

The U.S. Department of Energy is considering a stand-alone contract for management of its Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina. The DOE Office of Environmental Management on Wednesday issued a request for information/sources sought notice for management and operations of the government lab, which currently operates under the full Savannah River Site (SRS) contract. […]

A 2020 appropriations package passed by Congress this week would fully fund the next generation of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, along with the civilian-operated infrastructure that makes their warheads. Gone from the 2020 budget are nearly all the restrictions House Democrats wanted to put on the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) procurement, and supporting infrastructure and […]

A group of 11 nuclear security and health experts on Wednesday urged the heads of the U.S. Departments of Energy and Health and Human Services to find that the federal government no longer needs to export weapon-grade uranium for foreign production of the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). Allowing exports to continue would present a continued […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published on Friday, Dec. 27, in observance of the Christmas holiday. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Jan. 3, 2020.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) would receive a roughly a $31 million budget for fiscal 2020, which it would have to use to employ the equivalent of at least 110 full-time staff, under a 2020 appropriations package Congress approved this week. Explanatory language appended to the bill, which President Donald Trump was set […]

In a pound-the-table brief filed this week, Nevada asked a federal judge to hear oral arguments in an ongoing lawsuit to remove 500 kilograms of weapon-usable plutonium from the state. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration shipped the material to the Nevada National Security Site in 2018 to comply with a court order […]

Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve) has received a three-year contract potentially worth more than $2.3 million to support construction by Centrus Energy of a 16-machine uranium enrichment cascade at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. Under the pact, which will employ the equivalent of 2.5 full-time employees, Pro2Serve, of Oak Ridge, Tenn., […]

Congress wants the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to slide about $5.5 million from the maintenance budget for the W80 cruise-missile warhead into a Pentagon study to select a design for a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile, according to a compromise 2020 spending bill that would fund the agency through September. The Donald Trump administration proposed […]