Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not publish on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022 in observance of the New Year’s holiday. Happy holidays to everyone!

Inching forward with plans to dispose of surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans public hearings after New Year’s on its just-released draft environmental review of the project, the agency said recently. The nuclear-weapons agency on Friday released a draft environmental impact statement about its planned Surplus Plutonium […]

Right in time for Christmas, the National Nuclear Security Administration put Nuclear Fuel Services under contract to produce uranium metal for nuclear weapons programs, according to a procurement note published Monday. The agency’s announcement Monday moves Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS), a BWX Technologies subsidiary in Erwin, Tenn., into new work on the sole-source contract the […]

The New Mexico Environment Department on Tuesday kicked off a 60-day comment period on a 10-year permit renewal for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, with the state fighting the federal government’s attempt to keep the mine’s closure date open-ended. The DOE has said it needs the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to […]

The story “Pantex building returning to explosive testing after years of semi-retirement” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 26, No. 48] should have said that a recently reactivated facility at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, will not be used for nuclear weapons production.

Civilian nuclear weapons programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration will almost all get year-over-year raises in excess of what the White House requested under an omnibus 2023 spending proposal poised to become law this week. The Senate voted 68-to-29 Thursday to  adopt the full-year appropriations bill, which then went to the House for a […]

Two of the three shots in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Nimble series of subcritical experiments should fire by early fiscal year 2024, with the third and final to follow not more than two years after, a lab spokesperson said this week. “It is anticipated that two shots, Twin Peaks and Nob Hill, will be […]

A communications outage at the Los Alamos National Laboratory that began over the weekend was unresolved at portions of the lab as late as early Monday morning, according to the lab. “The Laboratory experiences a communications outage over the weekend due to a fiber-optic cable cut near Santa Fe which impacted cellular and internet services […]

The National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory used its bank of high-powered lasers on Dec. 5 to ignite a fusion reaction that produced more energy from a small pellet than the lasers put into the pellet, the lab said. The long-hoped for achievement marked “a new chapter in NNSA’s [National Nuclear Security […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security is in the early stages of returning a facility at the NNSA’s Pantex Plant in Texas to active explosive testing. In October, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board noted the effort to reclaim the facility after 30 years of inactivity following a contamination event. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) spokesman Jason Bohne confirmed […]

Congress passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act and a short-term spending bill this week, clearing the way for a long-term 2023 appropriations bill that would give Department of Energy nuclear programs budget stability through October. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) just passed tees up the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for a budget […]

Diana Tobbe, one of two conspirators charged with trying to sell nuclear-submarine secrets to a foreign government, was being transported to a federal prison this week and has retained a lawyer married to a Navy officer to represent her during an appeal. Tobbe said the Nov. 9 judgment against her in the U.S. District Court […]

Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton on Friday assumed command of the interagency forces that carry U.S. nuclear weapons. Cotton, previously commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, took over from Admiral Charles Richard, who has led U.S. Strategic Command since November 2019. Richard will retire from active duty, Strategic Command said. The change of command […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration extended Los Alamos National Laboratory management and operations contractor Triad National Security for five more years, through Nov. 1, 2028, the agency announced this week. In the third such mass-extension this year for a nuclear-weapons site contractor, the agency picked up five one-year options on Triad’s contract simultaneously. Triad includes […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is poised to move beyond what its administrator recently characterized as an outmoded system of requiring the contractors who manage major nuclear-weapon sites to earn extensions one year at a time. “[T]he one-year contract for award terms were incredibly destabilizing at our labs, plants and sites because they couldn’t keep […]

The Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup branch should not see a significant near-term decrease in its budget for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina because control of the federal complex is being transferred to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a budget and planning official said last week. “Most of our funding is for liquid […]

A building slated to become a key cog in the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plutonium pit-production complex is taking longer than expected to be authorized to hold enough plutonium for its new mission, a spokesperson said this week. The Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) should be recategorized as a hazard category 3 nuclear facility by March […]

A compromise National Defense Authorization Act approved Thursday by the House would authorize the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend some $880 million more than requested, more than the House or Senate had proposed individually. The House and Senate much each approve this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) before President Joe Biden (D) can […]

During fiscal 2022, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board worked on staffing needs and finalized a deal with the Department of Energy spelling out the watchdog’s authority to access people, records and facilities around the weapons complex. Those are a couple of highlights from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) fiscal 2022 Agency Financial Report released last week. […]

The U.S. will not allow Australia’s submarine forces to have “capability gap” between the time the island nation retires its diesel-powered submarines and deploys nuclear-powered subs powered by technology provided by the U.K. and the U.S., the Secretary of Defense said this week. “[W]e will not allow Australia to have a capability gap going forward,” […]

A Maryland woman just sentenced to prison for her role in attempting to sell U.S. nuclear submarine secrets to a foreign country has lodged an appeal, court documents filed Tuesday show. On Nov. 9, Diana Toebbe, 46, was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District […]

A New Mexico judge who worked for more than a decade at the Los Alamos National Laboratory was apparently murdered by her husband, who then killed himself, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office said Saturday. “Eric Pinkerton is believed to have shot his wife and several animals in the house before shooting himself,” the sheriff’s office […]

Jeff Avery, a longtime manager with the Office of Naval Reactors, has been selected as the new second-in-command at the Department of Energy’s $7.8-billion Office of Environmental Management. Avery, current director of regulatory and security affairs with the Office of Naval Reactors, officially becomes principal deputy assistant secretary for Environmental Management, or EM-2, effective in […]

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, Beloit, Wis., finished building a factory to produce, without the use of highly enriched uranium, the medically usable isotope Molybdenum-99, the National Nuclear Security Administration said Monday.  NorthStar is one of several U.S. companies that have gotten money from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to expand domestic production of the isotope, […]

The cost of the next subcritical nuclear testing facility in Nevada crept up a little, according to an audit report published Monday by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) now projects a maximum combined cost for the U1a Complex Enhancement Project (UCEP) of $577 million, a little more than […]

Materials shortages and labor productivity drove a two-year delay to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s next factory for nuclear-weapon secondary stages, the head of agency said Thursday. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties it created sourcing materials, “construction is just really hard in the United States now,” Jill Hruby, administrator of […]

Steven Ho is the new chief of staff to National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Jill Hruby, Hruby said Thursday afternoon during a virtual forum. In his new role, Ho will be Hruby’s administrative point man at the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency. Ho was most recently director of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s […]