Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

A delegation of high-profile South Carolina politicians met Thursday with President Donald Trump at the White House to make a last-minute plea to save an embattled plutonium-disposal plant in the Palmetto State — a facility the Department of Energy wants to convert into a weapon factory. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), along with Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Wednesday notified MOX Services that the agency will terminate the company’s contract to build a long-delayed plutonium disposal plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency sent the letter one day after a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s injunction […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina sustained minor impacts from Hurricane Michael late Thursday and early Friday, during a 24-hour workforce reduction activated as the storm approached. Effects included minimal damage to some administrative buildings at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy facility near the city of Aiken, along with some loss of power and […]

Next-generation nuclear missiles and submarines were among the weapons systems reviewed for hacking vulnerabilities by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a report published this week, The New York Times reported.  Citing interviews with unidentified GAO officials, the Times said the classified version of the report published in unclassified form Tuesday included a look at the cyber vulnerabilities […]

The secretary of energy and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday expressed condolences for the death of an agency security employee who helped move special nuclear material across the country. Kristopher Youngberg, 41, died after a passenger van he was riding in last week along with four other Department of Energy […]

Companies interested in building custom road equipment to transport tritium-bearing rods to the Savannah River Site from a nuclear reactor in Tennessee got an extra month-and-a-half, until Nov. 9, to file their bids, the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said Tuesday. Battelle, which runs the Washington state lab for […]

Barriers to producing plutonium nuclear weapon cores in South Carolina remain, but the way is wide open in New Mexico, where the National Nuclear Security Administration has entered the peak spending years of upgrades aimed at producing a war-usable “pit” by fiscal 2024.  The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous stockpile steward is entering peak construction years on […]

Charles Verdon, a longtime manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, on Tuesday officially started his new job leading the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $11-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. Verdon was sworn in as NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs by Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, according to an agency press release. […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move late on Oct. 5 in a post […]

The managing contractor for the Nevada National Security Site, Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS), envisions significant subcontracting opportunities for construction and consulting services in the near future, a senior manager said recently. The venture comprised of Honeywell International, Jacobs, and Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3) took over management of the site for the Department […]

Nevada is “actively exploring all possible avenues” to prevent the Department of Energy from moving nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into the state, Gov. Brian Sandoval wrote in a Sept. 28 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Nevada Independent website first published the letter Wednesday. In response to a federal court order in December, DOE is contemplating moving […]

Rich Abott Defense Daily Lockheed Martin won hundreds of millions in U.S. Navy contract modifications for work on new procurement of Trident II (D5) submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) on Sept. 28. The Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs awarded the company a $333 million cost-plus-incentive-fee cost-plus-fixed-fee modification for new procurement of Trident II deployed systems support. The […]

Triad National Security remains on course to take over management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on Nov. 1, the president and chief executive office of the incoming management contractor told regents of the University of California. Thomas Mason, who will also be lab director, reaffirmed his stance that restoring Los Alamos to […]

The Department of Energy last week finished a final design review on a multibillion-dollar program to homogenize four versions of the existing B61 nuclear gravity bomb, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration said. “Production qualification activities at Pantex will begin in October 2018, which will enable Phase 6.5 First Production authorization in September […]

Walking back her remarks from earlier in the day, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said Tuesday she did not mean to suggest the United States would pre-emptively attack any Russian missiles it believes could operate in the range prohibited by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. “I was not talking about preemptively striking Russia,” […]

The White House this week officially nominated Bruce Hamilton to take over as the full-time chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: an independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog he has led on an acting basis since February. The Donald Trump administration nominated Hamilton with around a month of legislative days left on the Senate’s […]

Days after asking as much in oral arguments, the Department of Energy this week again asked a federal appeals court to let it shut down the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. In early June, as part of a lawsuit filed by the state of South […]

A metric ton of plutonium once slated to be de-weaponized forever would instead be used to help the Department of Energy manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores next decade, the agency confirmed this week. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) decided that “a fraction of the plutonium that’s […]

The Department of Energy’s Defense Programs Advisory Committee is scheduled meet in closed session Oct. 22-23 at agency headquarters in Washington to discuss, among other things, a classified report on plutonium aging, according to a Federal Register notice filed last week. The all-day committee meetings will also address finalizing the charter for a high-performance computing subcommittee, the note says. […]

The House Armed Services Committee so far does not plan a hearing on a Democrat-sponsored bill to ban development of a low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, the panel’s chairman said Tuesday. In a press gaggle with Capitol Hill reporters, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said the House would recess after this week until the Nov. 6 midterm […]

Federal judges could soon issue rulings in a pair of appeals cases over the future of plutonium and plutonium operations in the state, following oral arguments in a federal appeals court this week. Arguments in both cases ― separate lawsuits the state brought against the federal agency in 2016 and 2018 ― happened Thursday in […]

Vivienne Machi Defense Daily More B-21 aircraft could be procured if the Air Force succeeds in doubling its number of bomber squadrons over the next decade, but service officials are not yet ready to talk tails. The Air Force’s proposal to increase its squadron numbers from 312 to 386 by the 2025-2030 timeframe would include […]

President Donald Trump plans to appoint Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) acting Chairman Bruce Hamilton to the top position on a permanent basis, the White House said Tuesday. Hamilton, a Navy veteran who spent decades in the nuclear energy industry, joined the board in August 2015 and was elevated to vice chairman last year […]

The State Department is relying in part on the Sandia National Laboratories to prioritize spending on global nonproliferation assistance programs, a senior State official said Tuesday. The New Mexico-based laboratory will help State’s bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation target financial aid to foreign countries based on the urgency of threats to the United States, […]

Bechtel National will have a new project manager in place next month for the next-generation Uranium Processing Facility the company is building at the Department of Energy’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. However, it is not ready yet to identify the project chief. Bechtel is moving current UPF project manager Valerie McCain across […]

The Department of Energy again moved to waive a requirement to continue building a planned plutonium disposal facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., papers filed with a federal appeals court this week show. The waiver came in the form of a Sept. 18 letter from Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, administrator of DOE’s semiautonomous National […]

The Senate this week confirmed Jackie Wolcott as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency and as the U.S. representative to the Vienna, Austria, office of the United Nations. Senators approved Wolcott’s nomination Monday by a vote of 75-19. Trump nominated Wolcott, a longtime Washington hand and a seasoned diplomat with […]