Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The threat of nuclear war is as great as it has ever been in the atomic age, the nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said Thursday in its latest Doomsday Clock statement. The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor the group created in 1947, in which midnight represents total annihilation of human beings and their civilization […]

The federal government reopened Tuesday following a three-day shutdown, after Senate Democrats largely dropped their opposition to a stopgap budget bill to keep agencies open through Feb. 8. President Donald Trump signed the bill late Monday evening after it quickly passed through both chambers of Congress. The measure funds the Department of Energy (DOE) at […]

Steven Erhart  has been selected as the acting administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, leapfrogging the semiautonomous Department of Energy branch’s highest-ranking career civil servant at the helm until the Senate confirms the White House’s administrator-designate. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced the move Jan. 19 at the bottom of a press release acknowledging the […]

In its last year on the job, National Security Technologies (NSTec) was praised for smooth handling of capital projects at the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site, including its work to solidify designs for a new underground, non-explosive weapons-testing facility. National Security Technologies in 2017 wrapped up its management of the Nevada National Security Site for […]

A suspicious package triggered an emergency response at the Pantex nuclear-weapon assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, on Jan. 16, but the details are on a strictly need-to-know basis, according to an official report from the Department of Energy. “On January 16, 2018, an operational emergency was declared, and the Emergency Response Organization was activated,” reads […]

In his farewell memo last week, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chairman Sean Sullivan suggested he lost the confidence of the 120 staff members of the independent safety watchdog he led for a year and wanted to disband. “Our fine staff deserves to be led by an executive the staff believes in,” Sullivan, a board […]

French nuclear fuel cycle company New AREVA officially has a new name as of Tuesday: Orano. Orano is the result of a corporate restructuring AREVA initiated in 2016 that late last year resulted in the sale of the company’s nuclear power business to French utility EDF and other entities. What was left was almost entirely […]

Officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration got an earful at a public meeting Wednesday over a contested power line for Y-12 National Security Complex’s new power substation. The substation will replace the existing, deteriorating power station for the Department of Energy facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. It will provide the power needed for Y-12’s […]

A federal lawsuit accusing the management contractor at the Savannah River Site of forcing a worker to retire due to his sleep apnea should be thrown out, according to a recommendation from a U.S. magistrate judge. Judge Thomas Rogers wrote in his Jan. 19 recommendation that Steven Baxley, a former employee of Savannah River Nuclear […]

The final version of the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review will arrive in early February, the Pentagon said Thursday. Dana White, the chief Department of Defense spokesperson, firmed up the date for the official release in a Pentagon briefing with the press. The long-awaited review, which leaked out in draft form earlier in January, […]

Marc Selinger Defense Daily The U.S. Air Force has launched a two-month review of all of its programs to determine whether some of them are no longer needed, according to a service official. The review, which began Jan. 16 and is scheduled to end March 15, is meant to go beyond the annual budget process, which […]

Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies got praise for its contribution to nuclear warhead life-extension programs in fiscal 2017, along with hand-wringing over the departure of key personnel, in an annual performance report card from the government. That is according to a performance evaluation report published Thursday by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration […]

A third South Carolina jurisdiction has officially called on the Department of Energy to move production of plutonium pits — the fissile hearts of nuclear warheads — to the Savannah River Site from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. On Tuesday, the city of North Augusta, which neighbors the Savannah River Site, passed a […]

The United States reached its strategic nuclear-arms reduction obligations well in advance of a Feb. 5 deadline prescribed by the New START treaty with Russia, and a cut in deployed submarine-based missiles made up the largest reduction by missile count in 2017, according a document published Friday by the U.S. Department of State. The State […]

A civil-military panel approved designs for an upgrade of the W88 nuclear ballistic missile warhead carried aboard U.S. submarines, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday in a press release. Panel members, drawn from within and outside of the Department of Energy agency, approved system-level designs for the W88’s upgraded arming, fuzing, and firing (AF&F) […]

While no one was hurt and no special nuclear material was damaged, the outgoing prime contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory lost about $3 million in award fees in fiscal 2017 because it broke Department of Energy rules and shipped plutonium by plane instead of by truck. In June 2017, Los Alamos National Security […]

The head of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration was set to retire Friday, and the Department of Energy has declined to identify his successor. As Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s sister publication, Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, first reported last week, longtime government man and retired Air Force general Frank Klotz will retire from federal […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration dinged Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) for delays on a nuclear-bomb life-extension program in fiscal 2017 in a generally positive performance evaluation report published Thursday. Overall, CNS earned about $36 million in fees for managing the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency’s Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex in Tennessee and Pantex Plant in […]

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions took home $13.1 million in fiscal 2017 fees for the nuclear-weapon work it manages for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. That was roughly 84 percent of the total available $15.7 million fee for the budget year that ended on Sept. 30 of […]

The Department of Energy praised the prime contractor at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for on-time work on nuclear warheads and bombs in fiscal 2017, but clipped some award fee dollars because of delays with electrical upgrades at the California weapons lab. Lawrence Livermore National Security (LLNS) earned about $40 million in fees for 2017: […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapon and nonproliferation programs teetered on the brink of a funding lapse Friday at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, caught up in larger policy and political waves that threatened to temporarily shut down the entire federal government. So, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued fresh guidelines for its civil […]

A $100-million-plus project to dramatically increase the computing power available for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s simulated nuclear weapons tests has cleared its final environmental hurdle, the Department of Energy said Tuesday. In a regulatory document called a supplement analysis, the agency’s National Nuclear Security Administration said “no further NEPA [National Environmental Protection Act] documentation is required” […]

The Savannah River Site’s management and operations contractor hired about 550 employees last year in an effort to offset personnel lost due to retirement. Some of the new Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) hires are operators, who assist in the operation of a process or equipment within a nuclear facility at the Department of Energy […]

Concerns are growing over safety violations at the Savannah River Site’s defense facilities, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board said in a recent letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The Jan. 4 letter, signed by DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan, said safety issues identified in a Sept. 8, 2017, report from staff at the DOE watchdog […]

It is time for Congress to take a look at the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories and their contribution to the agency’s mission, according to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). During a Jan. 9 House Energy and Commerce energy subcommittee hearing on DOE modernization, Barton said he plans to draft a bipartisan reauthorization bill for […]

David Jonas, who President Donald Trump last year nominated to be the Department of Energy’s general counsel, no longer wants the job, according to a LinkedIn post Jonas published late Jan. 7. “In considering the additional months that would be required for final confirmation, as well as my professional responsibilities at FH+H Law Firm, I […]

With fewer than six months left on the incumbent’s contract, the Department of Energy still has not started competition for the next Savannah River Site management and operations deal — the pact that includes running the National Nuclear Security Administration’s tritium program. The NNSA extracts tritium gas, which boosts the yield of nuclear weapons, at the […]

As part of a joint procurement with the U.S. Navy, the Department of Energy last week solicited bids for a potentially 10-year contract to manage the Naval Nuclear Laboratory. Incumbent Bechtel Marine Power Corp. has been on the job since 2009. The current and follow-on contract includes management and operation of DOE’s Bettis Atomic Power […]