Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The Government Accountability Office found ‘no basis’ to object to the Department of Energy’s approach to evaluating contenders for its National Training Center contract, according to its public decision on the incumbent’s bid protest. On Oct. 9, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) denied two protests by the Albuquerque, N.M.-based National Training Center’s incumbent, Kupono Government […]

James Peery, who has a tenure of over 30 years at National Nuclear Security Administration laboratories, announced his retirement last week, Sandia National Laboratories confirmed to the Monitor Tuesday. Peery served as lab director for Sandia National Laboratories from January 2020 to present, according to his bio on Sandia’s website. A spokesperson for Sandia told […]

This Friday, Oct. 18, will mark the end of the official term for Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chair Joyce Connery, but Connery will stay on longer to prevent the panel from losing a quorum, a spokesperson said Wednesday. A “quorum saving provision” in Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) rules allows Connery to stay […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday published a vision for the U.S. nuclear-weapons production complex that could exist in the decades when the last nuclear-arms-control treaty lapses and China finishes a major military modernization. The fruit of a year of work, the 40-page Enterprise Blueprint published Tuesday, and provided to the Exchange Monitor under […]

The Savannah River Site is hitting its self-imposed milestone to complete 60% of the design of the site’s plutonium pit facility, construction on which could start by December 2025, the head of the site’s prime contractor said Tuesday in a public meeting. “You’re talking somewhere between August and December of ‘25 is where I see […]

The story “NNSA, antis, get more time to negotiate agreement after agency loses pit lawsuit” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 28 No. 39], should have said that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims said that “parties’ discussion and proposal should take into consideration Plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief.” The story should also have said […]

Commissioners from Santa Fe County, N.M., objected Tuesday to a project by Los Alamos National Laboratory that would build a power line through the Caja del Rio Plateau. In a letter from Santa Fe County commissioners to Ted Wyka, manager at Los Alamos Field Office, and Michiko Martin, regional forester at the U.S. Department of […]

The H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility at Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., began dissolving nuclear material from a Japanese research reactor, according to an agency press release. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency sent plutonium fuel, or Fast Critical Assembly fuel, from the reactor to the Savannah River Site. The Japanese agency also sent funding. […]

A federal judge last week did not reinstate an Iranian-born ex-professor to the University of Toledo in Ohio after the former faculty member sued the university on multiple counts of discrimination. Judge Jeffrey Helmick in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, western division, dismissed all of the plaintiff’s claims on Sept. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s office of radiological security hosted a workshop in Thessaloniki, Greece, to showcase technologies aimed at reducing terrorism risks, the agency said Friday. Representatives and regulators from Algeria, Greece and Italy attended the workshop on Sept. 17-18 to listen to and network with experts from the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) […]

As part of a review of its new responsibilities under a bill passed this year, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission might create a new branch focused on exports, or it might not, the agency’s head told media Tuesday. “We may do that, but that’s a discussion that we’re still taking a look at,” Christopher Hanson, chair […]

Andrii Korotkyi, head of security at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, was killed in a car explosion, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Monday. “Any targeting of employees of nuclear power plants would constitute a blatant violation of this pillar fundamental for overall nuclear safety and security,” International Atomic […]

A judge Monday granted an extension for parties involved in a three year-old lawsuit against the Department of Energy to reach a compromise, a court document shows. The new due date for a joint proposal by both parties is Oct. 25, according to a filing in the case. Judge Mary Lewis last week ruled that […]

Savannah River Site returned to its normal operations Monday after the site was limited to essential personnel in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, a spokesperson told the ExchangeMonitor. “Phased resumption of workers returning back to the site began [in the] middle of last week,” the spokesperson told the Monitor in an email. “During the storm itself and immediate […]

The Department of Energy last week awarded six contracts for turning future stocks of government-owned, high-assay low-enriched uranium into forms suitable for use as nuclear reactor fuel. DOE made the awards a little less than a year after soliciting bids for the work. The six contracts combined are worth up to $800 million over 10 […]

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant lost connection to the only remaining backup powerline needed to cool its six reactors, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general. According to a statement by the agency Thursday, the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) disconnected Tuesday morning from its backup 330 kilovolt line, forcing it to be […]

Two years after a St. Louis-area school was closed following reports of radioactive contamination, Missouri lawmakers are laying groundwork for new state laws about risks from legacy nuclear-weapons, according to a statement by the Missouri House Speaker Rep. Dean Plocher (R). The eight-member Special Interim Committee on the Impact of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Programs on […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Thursday released the fiscal year 2025 version of the stockpile stewardship and management plan (SSMP) to describe the agency’s plans to maintain the stockpile without testing nuclear weapons. “The SSMP is an annual document provided to Congress, the American people, and the global public. It is a […]

Mark Rutte, NATO’s new secretary general, said in a press conference Tuesday that despite “reckless and irresponsible” rhetoric from the Kremlin, he does not see an impending nuclear threat from Russia. “We should just acknowledge the fact that clearly, there is no imminent threat of nuclear weapons being used,” Rutte said at the press conference […]

Amentum, which last week absorbed Jacobs Solutions’ government service business, is eyeing business opportunities at U.S. nuclear-weapon sites and in nuclear energy, its CEO told the ExchangeMonitor this week. Prior to Friday’s merger, Amentum, spun off from Aecom in 2020, was part of three big nuclear-weapons-cleanup contractors serving the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Tuesday finished its First Production Unit of a plutonium pit for the planned W87-1 warhead, an agency press release said. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) verified, or “diamond stamped,” the pit, the fissile core of a warhead first stage, after it met the requirements for readiness to be […]

The Department of Energy did not adequately study the environmental effects of producing nuclear-weapon cores in two states, a federal judge ruled Monday in a three year-old lawsuit. But the judge in the case declined to halt construction of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., as requested […]

The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited Belarus and its nuclear power plant in Ostrovets Tuesday to conduct meetings, the agency said in a press release. Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), traveled with a team of experts to assess the situation and ensure “nuclear safety and […]

A woman driving westbound on the main thoroughfare through Los Alamos left her lane and ran head-on into an SUV driven by Charles McMillan, killing him, the Los Alamos Police Department said. Charles McMillan, 69, was the only person to die in the crash in Los Alamos, N.M. Sept. 6. His wife Janet McMillan, and […]

The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration was set to become landlord of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina effective Tuesday, Oct. 1. The nuclear-weapons agency will take over management of the 310-square-mile federal complex near the Georgia line from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, which cleans up shuttered nuclear-weapons production sites. […]

The first boat in the Columbia-class fleet of nuclear-armed submarines will cost several times more than the shipbuilder and Navy estimate, the Government Accountability Office said this week in a new audit report. Those overruns are in addition to delays already disclosed by the Navy in an April shipbuilding report, the Government Accountability Office said. […]

President Joe Biden (D) on Wednesday told media he would not support an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, after vice presidential candidates and nonprofits sounded their own alarms. Reporters caught Mr. Biden at Joint Base Andrews, before he boarded Air Force One. When they asked if he would support Israel striking iran’s nuclear sites, […]

Defense ministers from the U.K. and Australia last week said they will negotiate a new treaty related to Australian-made nuclear-powered submarines to be developed under the AUKUS agreement. During a press conference following a trilateral AUKUS defense ministerial meeting in London, British defense secretary John Healey announced that he and Richard Marles, Australia’s deputy prime […]