Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

A Kansas City, Mo., company will help upgrade infrastructure at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to accommodate future exascale computing capability, under a contract from lab prime Livermore National Security. Burns & McDonnell announced the award Monday. The company did not provide the financial terms of the contract, which involves design services for Livermore’s […]

Publication Notice Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published next week in observance of the Thanksgiving Day holiday. Please look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Nov. 30.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled on Nov. 29 to vet William Bookless, an experienced nuclear weapons scientist who spent much of his career at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The Donald Trump administration on Aug. 16 nominated Bookless as principal deputy administrator for […]

Boeing has been awarded a $70.5 million contract modification for the Air Force’s Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) flight test, telemetry and termination program, the Defense Department said Nov. 13. The modification changes the “specifications for the parts management plan, flight termination receiver, electromagnetic interference, cable qualification requirements, and antenna testing requirements,” according to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was wrong to withhold about $1 million in wage-related payments under a now-canceled contract to build a plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina, a federal judge ruled Friday. The agency must now return the money withheld from MOX Services, prime contractor on the unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility […]

The next-generation submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) to be featured on the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine will incorporate some elements of the current Trident D5 Life Extension (D5LE) weapon, a top Navy official said. Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, director of Strategic Systems Programs (SSP), told the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium Nov. 8 that the follow-on missile is […]

WASHINGTON — The aspiring chair of the House Armed Services Committee wants to scrap the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, whip up a multilateral Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces-style treaty, and take a run at making no-first-use the nuclear law of the land. Speaking here Wednesday at the Ploughshares Fund’s “Future of U.S. Nuclear Policy” conference, Rep. […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) has “underperformed” its mission to protect the public from the hazards posed by defense nuclear weapons sites, and the quality of the small agency’s interactions with the Department of Energy has fallen to “an all-time low,” according to a study published this week. The DNFSB contracted the National Academy […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California sent many of its 7,000 employees home early Wednesday and Thursday because of poor air quality resulting from wildfires burning in other parts of the state, a lab spokesperson said. The early dismissals applied both to employees at the main Livermore campus and the lab’s Site 300 non-nuclear-explosives […]

The prime contractor for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility will lay off roughly a third of its workforce in early January, according to federally required layoff notices filed Nov. 8, two days after the U.S. midterm elections.  CB&I Project Services, now part of McDermott and a subcontractor-owner of Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) prime […]

George Rael, a longtime Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) official, has joined Longenecker & Associates as a project manager at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico effective this week. Longenecker is a subcontractor to Triad National Security, which on Nov. 1 took over as the NNSA’s management and operations […]

Botching welds on 12 missile tubes for the Columbia-class submarine earlier this year proved a costly mistake for BWX Technologies, which on Wednesday said the problems with its welding program in Indiana were more complicated than first thought. On a conference call with investors, BWXT said its Nuclear Operations Group took a $40 million revenue hit in […]

The lead attorney at the Savannah River Site was honored by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for helping the agency pivot away from processing surplus weapon-usable plutonium at the South Carolina facility’s now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). Mary-Ellen Noone, counsel for the NNSA Savannah River Field Office, won the NNSA General Counsel […]

Brian Zieroth on Oct. 29 replaced Valerie McCain as Bechtel National’s project manager on the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) being built at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a company spokesperson said Monday. Zieroth will now manage construction of a roughly $6.5 billion facility designed to mold uranium into shapes usable in […]

The New Mexico congressman whose district covers the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s wants a leadership role with the House Democrats, who in midterm elections Tuesday secured control of the lower chamber for the next two years. Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), a five-term congressman who just won a sixth, announced the move online Wednesday, including […]

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Tuesday its Newport News Shipbuilding had secure a roughly $200 million subcontract modification to provide long-lead components, including commodities materials, and labor for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine. Huntington Ingalls is a major subcontractor on General Dynamics Electric Boat’s roughly $5 billion Naval Sea Systems Command prime contract to develop and […]

ARLINGTON, Va. — The head of the joint Navy-Department of Energy naval reactors program said Wednesday construction on the first Columbia-class ballistic submarine will begin in 2021, but warned that “there will be problems” and that the Navy will “have to work hard to get her on patrol in 2031.” “We need Columbia boats,” Adm. […]

The results of the Nov. 6 midterm elections, from the Democratic takeover of the House to the extra GOP pickups in the Senate, will be reflected in the two chambers’ armed services committees. As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats had taken control of 222 House seats and the Republicans control 196, with 418 out of 435 […]

Democrats this week won control of the House of Representatives, and the aspirant chair of the House Armed Services Committee said they plan to go after nuclear weapons when the 116th Congress convenes in January. In the cross hairs: the 30-year nuclear modernization program established by the Barack Obama administration in 2016 and augmented this year […]

The Department of Energy said this week it has started work to move a metric ton of plutonium out of South Carolina, after three federal appeals judges affirmed a lower court’s order to remove the material from the state by Jan. 1, 2020. Barring an escalation to the U.S. Supreme Court, or a rehearing in the U.S. […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Seaton on Thursday lauded two Department of Energy contract extensions for programs led by the company and expressed optimism about winning more business during the fourth quarter. The Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions team, which manages the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, received a 12-month contract extension from in […]

The Department of Energy and the Pentagon could be studying a new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile by this time next year, the Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said this week in an annual report on its nuclear-weapon programs. The Donald Trump administration called on DOE to research the weapon in the Nuclear […]

After about a month of negotiations, the Department of Energy and the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility could not agree to settle their differences over some $1 million in disputed payments related to raises the company gave 55 employees a few years ago. “Unfortunately, the parties’ efforts have not resulted […]

While it did not generate the same level of attention as a security scare last week at the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Nevada National Security Site also dealt with an incident — for which the culprit was an ultimately harmless cell phone. According to a Department of Energy summary posted Wednesday, a suspicious package […]

Triad National Security took over management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on Thursday, ending a decade-long experiment in running the nation’s oldest nuclear weapons laboratory as a for-profit business. After a four-month transition, Triad — led by the nonprofit trio of Battelle Memorial Institute, longtime Los Alamos manager the University of […]

A trio of advocacy groups asked the Department of Energy and the Pentagon to provide a little budget bump for three National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)-funded optics facilities across the country, including one in Rochester, N.Y., the Donald Trump administration tried to cancel last year. In a letter last week, the groups urged Energy Secretary Rick […]

The head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management will attend a Nov. 28 public hearing about a controversial agency order the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) fears will limit its access to defense-nuclear sites across the country. Anne Marie White, assistant secretary for environmental management, accepted the invitation on or […]

A Democratic House with a Democratic Armed Services Committee chairman who is openly skeptical of the established nuclear modernization program is perhaps the most plausible consequence of the 2018 midterm elections, for those who watch the National Nuclear Security Administration. Reps. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) are not in particularly competitive races. In […]