Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Bills pending before the South Carolina legislature could split the state regulator for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken into two separate organizations, a state agency official told the Citizens Advisory Board for the federal complex Monday. Susan Fulmer, manager of federal remediation for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental […]

Work continues on transfer of the Savannah River Site landlord authority to the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, the top cleanup fed at the South Carolina complex told a DOE advisory panel this week. A joint team of DOE Office of Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) representatives should issue […]

The Air Force conducted a critical design review for the AGM-181 Long Range Stand-Off nuclear-tipped cruise missile from Feb. 2 to -March 2 at Eglin AFB, Fla., a service spokesperson said Monday. Raytheon Technologies, Arlington, Va., is the Air Force’s prime contractor for the missile, which will carry a W80-4 warhead provided by the National […]

Australia will buy three U.S.-built Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines beginning in the 2030s as part of the tripartite AUKUS deal, the parties said Monday. AUKUS aims both to create an Australian nuclear submarine force and industrial base and recapitalize the U.S. submarine building industry. President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and U.K. Prime Minister […]

Materials shortages, technology changes and other factors have pushed major enhancements to a nuclear-weapon testing facility in Nevada back three years and inflated the overall project cost to $1.8 billion, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s 2024 budget request. Supply chain disruptions and other problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic also contributed to the […]

A recent U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on the National Nuclear Security Administration found that technical limitations and exceptions for some nuclear warheads do not hamper the Defense Department’s planning or operations. Published March 90, the report highlights 90 technical nuclear weapons exceptions and limitations in six categories: Safety, operational considerations, reliability, performance, aircraft […]

President Joe Biden recently announced his intent to nominate Patricia Lee, who has more than 30 years of experience with radiation protection issues at the Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina and elsewhere, to serve on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Lee now serves as the portfolio manager for the laboratory’s digital enterprise, […]

The U.S. military lags behind both Russia and China in building and fielding low-yield nuclear weapons and can address that gap by diversifying the military’s nuclear options, the head of U.S. Strategic Command told Congress on Thursday. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, in charge of U.S. nuclear forces since December, said he launched a review […]

Northrop Grumman recently completed the first full-scale static test of an LGM-35A Sentinel solid rocket motor at its test facility in Promontory, Utah, marking yet another milestone on the road to potentially flying an example of the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile later this year. In partnership with the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, the […]

Facing expanding mandates for information security at the two big nuclear-weapon production sites it manages, Consolidated Nuclear Security has launched a hiring spree for qualified information technology and cybersecurity experts. Over the past several years, Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) has found it difficult to meet its cybersecurity and IT staffing needs with its internal employee […]

The weapon systems that make up the U.S. nuclear triad have nearly outlived their operational utility and must be replaced to maintain a credible deterrent, senior Air Force officers in charge of nuclear forces said in congressional testimony Wednesday. Both Russia and China are rapidly modernizing and expanding their nuclear weapons stockpiles and delivery platforms, […]

Below is Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s annual digest of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) performance evaluation summaries: the agency’s report cards for its big contracts, which explain how much management and operations entities earned for their performance. The Monitor has provided links to NNSA source documents. Kansas City National Security Campus, Kansas City, […]

The Biden Administration’s fiscal 2024 budget requests $23.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of about $1.5 billion from the current fiscal year.  Released Thursday, the president’s budget request aims to “make historic investments in the nation’s nuclear security enterprise to implement the President’s Nuclear Posture Review; support a safe, secure, and […]

Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs would get a roughly 6% boost under the budget request President Joe Biden (D) released Thursday, while weapons cleanup would be flat. For DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, the Biden administration proposed roughly $23.8 billion for the 2024 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. That’s over $1.5 billion […]

Facing expanding mandates for information security at the two big nuclear-weapon production sites it manages, Consolidated Nuclear Security has launched a hiring spree for qualified information technology and cybersecurity experts. Over the past several years, Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) has found it difficult to meet its cybersecurity and IT staffing needs with its internal employee […]

The Department of Energy on Friday marked the anniversary of Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine with a list of the agency’s contributions to Kyiv during the conflict. Both the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Office of Nuclear Energy merited callouts in Friday’s press release for showing Ukrainian personnel how to identify radiation releases, conduct unspecified […]

A State Department spokesperson confirmed this week that Russia officially suspended its participation in the world’s biggest bilateral nuclear-weapons treaty. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also mentioned the treaty to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in New Delhi, India, during what the spokesperson called a “rather brief encounter” between the two at the Quad Foreign […]

Machined uranium chips caused the fire that prompted last week’s evacuation of the Y-12 National Security Complex’s Building 9212, a site spokesperson said this week. “In the event on February 22, chips of uranium metal from machining activity had been processed for storage in accordance with standard operating procedures,” a Y-12 spokesperson wrote Thursday in […]

The technology that powers the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s main nuclear-weapon testing center is a viable bedrock for a nuclear fusion power plant, the lab’s director testified Tuesday in Congress. Based on data available today from Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF), “it is feasible to develop a fusion energy power plant based on the inertial […]

PHOENIX – Winning support for a new low-level radioactive waste landfill at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee took a lot of time and friendly arm-twisting, a member of the House Appropriations Committee told the Waste Management Symposia Monday via electronic hookup from Washington, D.C. At various points, “we were stymied by […]

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a classified memo establishing new rules for the permanent disposal of weapon-usable nuclear material and the handling of weaponizable radioactive substances, the White House announced. National Security Memorandum 19 “establishes the first comprehensive policy for securing radioactive materials, which present continuing domestic and global risk, along with new domestic […]

A nearly two year-old federal lawsuit filed by environmental groups against the National Nuclear Security Administration’s planned plutonium-pit plant in South Carolina should enter its final stages this summer, recent court filings show. In a scheduling order filed Thursday, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina in Aiken ordered the environmentalists to […]

Over a year’s time, it is common for Department of Energy weapons complex sites to experience multiple fires that are recorded with the agency’s Occurrence Reporting and Processing System, according to a report from the agency’s Office of Enterprise Assessments. “The number of reportable fires per year [over a seven-year-period] ranged from 4 to 10, […]

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said this week Russia will “suspend” its participation in the New START nuclear arms control treaty but adhere to the treaty’s limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons. Media widely reported Putin’s remarks. The Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted that Putin announced the suspension during a Tuesday address to Russian lawmakers in […]

Earnings improved at Fluor, Irving, Texas, in the fourth quarter, which the engineering and construction contractor for the Department of Energy attributed Tuesday to improved efficiency and certain financial adjustments. Net earnings for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31 were $9 million, or a loss of $0.01 a share, up from a net loss of […]

SNC-Lavalin Group said this week it selected longtime Bechtel nuclear executive Jim Rugg to replace Tom Jouvanis as president of its Atkins Nuclear Secured Holding affiliate. Rugg, who spent more than 28 years at Bechtel, most recently as operations manager for defense and space, will officially become Atkins president on Feb. 27, according to the […]

Hundreds of employees evacuated the National Nuclear Security Administration’s main factory for nuclear-weapon secondary stages in Tennessee this week after a fire there, a spokesperson said. “There was a fire at approximately 9:15 involving uranium in Building 9212, a production facility onsite,” a spokesperson for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., wrote […]