Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

A new 10-year draft permit for the Department of Energy’s underground transuranic waste disposal site near Carlsbad, N.M., will prioritize legacy waste from cleanup activities over new waste resulting from the impending ramp-up in plutonium pit production at nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory, the New Mexico Environment Department said late Tuesday. The settlement heads off […]

There should be no shortage of naval nuclear reactors when the U.S. shipbuilding industry begins churning out historic numbers of submarines before the end of the decade, the Navy’s senior submarine procurement official said Monday. Rear Adm. Scott Pappano, the Navy’s program executive officer for strategic submarines, said there are no signs that reactor demand […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to perform two subcritical explosive experiments at the Nevada National Security Site in the fiscal year that ends Oct. 1, 2024, according to Deputy Administrator for Defense Nonproliferation Corey Hinderstein. Since the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CBTB) took effect in 1992, NNSA has performed 33 subcritical experiments at the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration wants to expand its supplier base for the highly engineered glove boxes needed to speed up production of new plutonium pits for nuclear weapons.  The airtight, pressurized containers, are in high demand at NNSA facilities such as Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is gearing up to produce at least 30 […]

Sandia National Laboratories is adopting a permanent hybrid workforce, increasing the number of telecommuters and remote workers across the organization. Sandia also plans to establish several hubs around the country that eventually will allow classified work to be done at secure locations other than those in New Mexico and California. The move toward remote work […]

The House Appropriations Committee late Thursday approved a bill that would give the National Nuclear Security Administration a slightly larger 2024 budget than requested, owing mostly to added funding for a plutonium pit plant being built in South Carolina. After a lengthy markup session that ran late into the night, the committee voted 34-to-24, essentially […]

Personnel from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the State Department met recently with counterparts from the five Nuclear Weapons States to discuss strategic risk reduction and stemming the spread of nuclear weapons.  Chaired by the U.S. delegation of the Nuclear Weapons States, officials met with counterparts from China, France, Russia and the U.K. in […]

Early Thursday, a House committee approved a bill to cap National Nuclear Security Administration spending in 2024 at about $23.8 billion and blocked a plan to repeal legal deadlines to make new nuclear weapon cores. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) would also approve $70 million to fund development of a sea-launched variant of […]

The Department of Energy is wagging its enforcement finger at Honeywell, which manages five of its nuclear security sites, for conducting firearms training for security personnel in sweltering heat at the Kansas City National Security Campus. On May 11, 2022, when it was 85 degrees outside, Honeywell conducted outdoor firearms training and qualification activities at […]

Employees suing Consolidated Nuclear Security over allegedly withheld wages responded late last week to the company’s request that a court throw the case out, again arguing that the contractor shorted them a paycheck in 2017. Plaintiffs James Myers, James Young and Douglas Messerli have so far been unsuccessful in certifying a class action lawsuit on […]

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. – By December 2024, the Los Alamos National Laboratory will produce a proof-of-concept pit for a new intercontinental ballistic missile warhead, a senior lab official said here Thursday during an extremely rare media tour of the building where workers will cast the weapon’s plutonium core. That pit will not go into one […]

Department of Energy employees and contractors are no longer allowed to use the popular short-video app TikTok “or any successor application or service” from the Chinese-owned company ByteDance on government devices. The prohibition is law, as of the passing of the creatively-named “No TikTok on Government Devices Act,” which “prohibits the presence or use of […]

Members of the House Armed Services Committee propose to withhold funding for retirement of the W76-2 warhead unless the military and National Nuclear Security Administration can prove there is no need for the lower-yield submarine-launched weapon. The bill would also withhold 20% of travel funding for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby until […]

Last week’s breach of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine threatens the stability of the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest, by draining a critical source of coolant water, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.  The breach of the dam early on June 6 caused a rapid drop in the water levels of the Kakhovka […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the go-ahead for Centrus to demonstrate production of high assay low-enriched uranium at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Regional Administrator Laura Dudes on June 12 wrote Mathew Snider, general manager of American Centrifuge Operating, to officially authorize the introduction of uranium […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories have successfully performed a second joint abnormal thermal environment test for the W80-4 Life Extension Program, the labs recently announced.  Carried out April 5 at Sandia’s Cross Wind Test Facility in New Mexico, this abnormal thermal environment test, or ATE-2, was a fast-heat, fully engulfing system-level fuel […]

Civilian nuclear weapons programs would get a little more funding than requested in fiscal year 2024 if a bill sent to the House Appropriations Committee this week becomes law. The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee’s version of the Department of Energy’s fiscal 2024 spending bill would provide $48.8 billion overall for the agency, […]

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories have successfully performed a second joint abnormal thermal environment test for the W80-4 Life Extension Program, the labs recently announced.  Carried out April 5 at Sandia’s Cross Wind Test Facility in New Mexico, this abnormal thermal environment test, or ATE-2, was a fast-heat, fully engulfing system-level fuel […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration needs at least 50 trained medics ready to treat gunshot trauma “anticipated in a hostile environment,” vehicle accidents on highways and caring for common illnesses for its Office of Secure Transport (OST) personnel.  The agency is seeking a medical service provider capable of training about 50 OST medics at the […]

With a deficit deal in place, the House and Senate now plan to write the annual bill authorizing budgets for Department of Energy defense-nuclear programs by June 23. Disrupted by negotiations over spending levels and U.S. borrowing authority, markups of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) are now set to resume next week, according to […]

Rep. Joe Wilson, the Republican from South Carolina whose district surrounds the Savannah River National Laboratory, recently received briefings from Navy, National Guard, and Department of Energy officials on how the state is promoting national security.  Leaders from Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Savannah River Site, and the Savannah […]

Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, currently the chief of staff of the Air Force, said the U.S. military’s new nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile is on track for a test flight by the end of the year.  Brown, nominated by President Joe Biden (D) to be the top uniformed officer in the U.S. military as the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Information Management has plans to establish a $6.4 million information technology center to consolidate two existing facilities in the Washington, D.C. area.  The NNSA began modernizing its information technology (IT) facilities with its fiscal year 2022 budget in order to establish data center space and “increase capacity for […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security recently laid the final roof beam of what will become the new High Explosives Science and Engineering facility at the Pantex Plant in Panhandle, Texas.  During the topping out of the facility, the construction crew placed the final steel beam on the Technology Development and Deployment Lab last week, the Pantex site […]

Employees suing Consolidated Nuclear Security over allegedly withheld wages are again without lawyers and have only two weeks to explain why the case should not be dismissed.  After the first set of lawyers for the three named plaintiffs, all employees of the manager of the Y-12 site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., bowed out of the […]

The Department of Energy’s defense nuclear programs would be largely untouched if the bipartisan deal to cut federal spending and extend the U.S. borrowing limit becomes law. The deal cleared a major hurdle Tuesday evening when the House Rules Committee voted 7-4 to allow the bill, the “Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023,” to advance to […]