Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Michelle Sandoval, an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is again vying to represent New Mexico’s 57th district in the statehouse.  Sandoval, who unsuccessfully ran for the State House seat in 2022, announced another bid for the office as a Democrat on her Facebook page and in the Rio Rancho Observer. Three years ago, […]

Earnings rose at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., for 2023, which the maker of nuclear naval reactors and manager of nuclear weapons sites attributed Tuesday mostly to favorable adjustments on government contracts. For the year, net earnings were $246.3 million, or $2.68 per share, up about 7.7% from $238.6 million, or $2.60 a share in 2023. […]

All shifts were scheduled to report normally to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, again on Friday, even as nearby wildfires of historic intensity continued to burn.  The plant’s website shows normal scheduling for the day, swing and graveyard shifts on Friday. Workers were recalled Wednesday after operations at the National […]

Excluding equipment and construction, the National Nuclear Security Administration will spend about $1 billion over 10 years to study the effects of aging on nuclear-weapon cores, the Government Accountability Office reported this week. According to the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) unclassified review of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) classified “Research Program Plan for Plutonium […]

The leader of U.S. Strategic Command now counts a nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile among his “critical” nuclear modernization efforts, alongside a new stealth bomber, ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles.  Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton has, until Thursday, avoided specifically endorsing development of a nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCM-N. He has said that […]

A high-ranking Japanese member of the Yakuza international organized crime syndicate allegedly planned to traffic materials containing uranium and weapons grade plutonium from Burma to other countries, including Iran, the Department of Justice wrote this week in a press release describing an indictment against Takeshi Ebisawa in the U.S. Southern District of New York. “As […]

Several recent tests of the Air Force’s land-based, LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, Calif., reflect “significant progress” in the weapon’s engineering, manufacturing and development phase, missile prime Northrop Grumman said Tuesday. “Forward and aft sections of a Sentinel ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile ] missile were evaluated through a […]

A small bipartisan group in the House released a foreign aid bill with new border security policies and war aid for Ukraine, but no stimulus funds for domestic uranium enrichment. The roughly $66-billion bill filed Feb. 15 by Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) is a counterproposal to the roughly $95-billion foreign aid bill the Senate passed, […]

Fluor Chairman and CEO David Constable expects the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to decide on a new management contractor for the Pantex Plant in Texas in the second or third quarter of this calendar year. Constable made the comment during a Tuesday earnings call with Wall Street analysts. The Fluor chief is […]

A private equity firm that acquired and merged several businesses that work for the Department of Energy sold the rolled-up companies to Cadre Holdings, a Jacksonville, Fla., maker of law-enforcement equipment. Cadre bought Alpha Safety Group, created by Benford Capital Partners of Chicago in 2021 from the former Nuclear Filter Technologies, for a little more […]

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is shopping around for a new Nevada Field Office headquarters in greater Las Vegas, a federal advisory board heard Wednesday evening. Jill Hruby, who heads DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, is slated to meet with Las Vegas officials next week in Washington, D.C., to discuss a […]

A bill that would have let New Mexico and Los Alamos County tax production of plutonium pits died quietly in the New Mexico legislature after a committee of jurisdiction declined to take up the measure. This week, when the legislative session ended, the bill was still waiting for action in the New Mexico House of […]

Honeywell this month marked its 75th year of work at what is now the Kansas City National Security Campus in Kansas City, Mo. Run by the National Nuclear Security Administration today, the campus relocated in 2014 from the old Bannister Federal Complex, portions of which were scheduled for transfer to the Department of Energy’s Office […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority extended a contract for defense uranium processing with BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services, the company announced Wednesday. Under the two year, $122-million extension, Nuclear Fuel Services, Erwin, Tenn., will continue converting highly enriched uranium into low-enriched uranium for use in National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) nuclear weapons programs until June […]

The House of Representatives was in no rush this week to consider a Ukraine aid package that would also provide an infusion of funds for monitoring radiological threats in Ukraine combat zones, the Speaker of the House said. “We are not going to be forced into action by the Senate,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), the […]

“Downwind” producers said this week their 2023 documentary about the aftermath of decades of nuclear testing at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, can be seen on Peacock, the same platform where the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Oppenheimer” is available for streaming this weekend. According to a press release, “Downwind” can help the public understand […]

Police in Bellevue, Wash., last month got an alarming call from an Air Force Museum in Ohio, alerting them that a town resident had offered to donate a pre-Vietnam unguided nuclear rocket.  The department’s bomb squad responded to find the remains of an AIR-2 Genie Rocket, produced until 1962. The unguided air-to-air rocket would have […]

The Senate on Thursday cleared a hurdle to vote on a bill that would bolster the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget for monitoring potential radiological threats in Ukrainian combat zones. Senators on Thursday voted 67-32 to end debate on the bill, clearing the way for a final floor vote that was not scheduled at deadline […]

With the Department of Energy still unable to provide needed storage containers, Centrus Energy will not be able to deliver 900 kilograms of high-assay, low-enriched uranium to the U.S. government this year, the company said Friday. The company can make the material, Chief Executive Officer Amir Vexler said Friday on an earnings call with investors […]

Earnings rose at Jacobs, Dallas, in the first quarter of fiscal 2024, which the global engineering, procurement and construction company attributed partly to international infrastructure projects. Tuesday’s press release marked the first earnings results from Jacobs since the company’s Nov. 20 announcement of a plan to merge its government contracting and cyber business lines with Virginia-based Amentum. […]

Mission Support and Test Services is under investigation for two incidents in the summer of 2023 in which falling rock injured employees at the deep-underground explosive testing facility it is building in Nevada for the National Nuclear Security Administration.  The enforcement arm of NNSA’s Office of Enterprise Assessments notified Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS) […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Strategic Command may accelerate and increase its buys of Raytheon-made AGM-181 Long Range Standoff Weapon cruise missiles beyond the 1,087 now planned, commander Gen. Anthony Cotton said here on Feb. 2. Asked if the command was examining those options, given Russian President Vladimir Putin’s posturing about using low-yield nuclear weapons after his […]

Los Alamos glovebox fire sprinklers could cause criticality, safety watchdog says Los Alamos National Laboratory is trying to prevent accidental criticalities caused when fires inside gloveboxes trigger a building’s sprinkler system, which might allow water to touch fissile material, according to a federal safety watchdog. In a report dated Jan. 19, the National Nuclear Security […]

To account for inflation, the National Nuclear Security Administration has petitioned Congress and been approved to bump up the threshold for minor construction projects to $34 million.  That is up from a $30 million threshold set by the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA also provided the NNSA with “pilot authority” to […]

WASHINGTON — A three-year slip for a new x-ray imager will not necessarily result in a bigger, more massive W93 nuclear warhead, senior officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory said here Thursday. That was a slight change in tune compared with an appraisal one of these people made last year. For the last three years, […]

WASHINGTON — A tech-industry downturn and a federal permission to boost worker compensation helped with hiring at U.S. nuclear-weapons labs, but hanging on to recruits is still tough, the lab directors said here Wednesday. “We’re actually in quite a good place right now,” Kimberly Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, […]