Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

A group of four Democratic U.S. lawmakers want the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Navy for a report about using low-enriched uranium to fuel U.S. submarines. The three U.S. Representatives and one U.S. Senator made the request in a Jan. 27 letter to Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and […]

Centrus Energy Corp. on Thursday said it can finish building an enrichment plant at a Department of Energy’s site in Ohio in time to make a test batch of energy-dense uranium fuel by December. In a press release, Centrus said it has built and tested a 16-centrifuge enrichment cascade at DOE’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, […]

The U.S. believes Russia violated the New START nuclear-arms control treaty between Washington and Moscow by blocking inspections in August, the Wall Street Journal reported this week, citing a State Department report to Congress delivered Jan. 24. “Two years ago, the Biden Administration naively agreed to an unconditional five-year extension of the New START Treaty […]

A Colorado Republican will chair the House Armed Services subcommittee in charge of Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs, the full committee’s new chairman announced recently. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) will lead the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, which aside from setting policy and spending limits for the entire National Nuclear Security Administration every […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory will install by 2030 the equipment needed to make at least 30 plutonium pits annually, according to a Jan. 19 memo from the deputy secretary of energy. Formally known as the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project 30 Base Equipment Installation subproject, the installation will provide the lab with “the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration stonewalled some requests for classified information by Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the board said in a congressionally mandated report. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) made a pair of classified-information requests with a Nov. 18 delivery date, but as of Jan. 19, “the board has not yet received […]

An entity called SRS Critical Infrastructure Security, which appeared to have the business in hand two years ago, filed a bid protest with the Government Accountability Office over the Department of Energy’s award of a new Savannah River Site security contract for incumbent Centerra. The award was announced earlier in January, and the bid protest […]

There will be some churn in the 118th Congress among staff on the House Armed Services Committee, which sets policy and spending limits for Department of Energy nuclear-weapons programs, according to documents the committee published Wednesday. Christopher Vieson will be the top committee hand at Armed Services for the new Republican majority, according to a […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration submitted a plan to Congress detailing the agency’s needs over the next decade for new experimental capabilities to test nuclear weapons and materials, a scientist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said Wednesday. Lasers, used at the Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the University of Rochester’s Omega Laser Facility, […]

Conversion of 400 LGM-30 Minuteman III ICBM silos to accommodate Northrop Grumman’s Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles will draw lessons from recent work by the company’s team in Utah. Parsons Corp., an original designer of the Minuteman silos, is a subcontractor to Northrop Grumman on the conversion of the Minuteman III silos for the Sentinel program. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration on Friday sought industry input on the looming competition for a contract that will split management of the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, from the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The agency expects to award the contract by March 2024 after a competition that it estimates will begin on […]

Feds at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina are busy planning to transfer responsibility for the complex to DOE’s nuclear weapons office from the cleanup branch in fiscal 2025, a top local boss said Monday. “As we discussed before, we have been charged to come up with a plan by June […]

Akima Systems Engineering, Herndon, Va., protested the award of a potentially $340-million operations and maintenance contract at the Department of Energy’s National Training Center in Albuquerque, N.M., which the agency in December awarded to Eagle Harbor, Manassas, Va. Akima lodged the protest on Jan. 17, just shy of a month after DOE awarded Eagle Harbor the work on […]

Citing “unprecedented danger” arising from Russia’s nearly year-long war against Ukraine, the peace-advocating Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on Tuesday set its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds until midnight. It is the closest the long-running, metaphorical clock — a consensus gut-check among dove-like experts — has ever been to the symbolic midnight hour that marks the […]

Three employees who claim Consolidated Nuclear Security illegally withheld more than $10 million in wages from a big group of employees need new lawyers after their attorneys quit last week, citing a conflict of interest. “Due to a conflict that has arisen, Plaintiffs’ counsel, attorneys [Justin] Gilbert and [Ron] Rayson, have no choice but seek […]

In a demonstration of its largest domestic program to reduce stocks of weaponizable nuclear material, the National Nuclear Security Administration in December shipped deweaponized plutonium out of South Carolina for permanent disposal, the agency said recently. It was a proof-of-concept run for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program, which began as a post-Cold-War plowshares effort with […]

Russia has manufactured the nuclear munitions for its Poseidon nuclear torpedo and planned to deliver them soon to a Belgorod-class nuclear submarine, the Russian state news agency TASS reported, media including Reuters reported. Poseidon torpedoes are meant to create radioactive ocean swells that can wash over and contaminate coastal cities and ports, Moscow has said. […]

In a little less than a month, the Department of Energy will start doling out fines for the unauthorized sharing of nuclear technology and know-how overseas, the agency said last week. On Thursday, the agency published its final rule in the Federal Register for implementing those penalties. They will go into effect Feb. 13, DOE said. The […]

Sandia National Laboratories’ Ion Beam Laboratory reopened late Wednesday after tritium levels spiked inside a glove bag on Monday and prompted an evacuation, the Albuquerque, N.M.-based lab said. “On Monday, Jan. 16, researchers at Sandia National Laboratories were performing work to characterize tritium samples inside of a confinement glovebag at the Ion Beam Laboratory. Workers […]

A woman who aided her husband’s attempt to sell nuclear-submarine secrets cannot appeal her conviction because she traded her right to appeal for a lighter sentence, the federal government said in court papers this week. While Diana Toebbe’s motive for appealing November’s verdict was not known as of Thursday — she had not yet filed […]

Incumbent Centerra Group has been awarded a new Security Services contract, potentially worth $1 billion over 10 years, at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The award, announced in a Thursday press release, is not a surprise. The DOE has been saying for many months it plans “corrective action” to its […]

Russian hackers targeted three Department of Energy laboratories, including the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, in a password-stealing scam, Reuters reported last week. The news service said the attempts involved Russian hackers creating fake login pages for each lab and then emailing lab employees with invitations to log in to the fake sites. DOE […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration backdated letters to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board and claimed its own safety rules actually permitted safety deficiencies the rules were supposed to prevent, the board said. In a letter late last year to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, the board complained about “the recent practice of the National […]

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a dependable ally of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 National Security Complex, is in the mix to lead the influential appropriations committee that writes the first drafts of DOE’s annual budget, a source said. Fleischmann, who since 2011 has represented Tennessee’s largely rural third district […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans by Oct. 31 to have permanent leadership for the three new procurement- and infrastructure-focused offices it created last year when it broke up the former Office of Acquisition and Project Management, according to a Government Accountability Office report published Tuesday. The agency “will establish specific outcome-oriented goals and performance […]

Amid the winter rainstorms pounding California, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has temporarily curtailed all but essential activity at its experimental test site in the San Francisco Bay Area, a spokesperson said this week. “Site 300 was in minimum safe configuration this week due to infrastructure conditions on roadways leading to the site,” a lab […]