Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

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 […]

In observance of the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not publish this Friday, Nov. 25. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Dec. 2.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has suggestions for avoiding uranium-related fires once the Uranium Processing Facility in Tennessee starts up and wants the Department of Energy to explain what it’s doing to prevent them, according to a letter published this week. “The Board believes that Y-12 can improve the site’s safety posture by ensuring […]

Many sites within the Department of Energy’s weapons complex have at least some level of exposure to certain human-made chemicals drawing increasing attention from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a report released Tuesday. The DOE rolled out its “Initial Assessment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances PFAS” at 53 properties, including sites run by […]

Jacobs, the Dallas-based leader and member of various Department of Energy nuclear contractors, had a good fiscal 2022, with revenue and profit each rising for the year, the company reported Monday. In a call with investors shortly after the earnings report, Jacobs executives said they planned to ride a surge of interest in nuclear power, […]

Suzy Sterner was promoted to senior vice president and chief corporate affairs officer at BWX Technologies, the company announced recently. Sterner, who joined BWX Technologies (BWXT) in 2019, was already leading the Lynchburg, Va., company’s communications and government relations operations at the time of her latest promotion, according to a BWXT LinkedIn post. She’ll now […]

Wise Services paid about $300,000 to the federal government to settle allegations that the company billed the government for non-existent construction materials at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., the Justice Department said Monday. The Dayton, Ohio-based company was a subcontractor to CB&I MOX Services, which was building the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s latest mask mandate lasted only three days, after which COVID-19 community transmission rates dropped below high, according to a lab memo. The New Mexico nuclear weapons laboratory let employees take the masks off Nov. 18 after briefly making face coverings mandatory again on Nov. 15, according to an internal email, […]

Local childcare providers near the Los Alamos National Laboratory are complaining that lab management is undercutting their business with a planned offsite daycare center for lab employees, according to an anonymous note circulated by the city chamber of commerce to local media including the local Los Alamos Reporter. The lab “made no effort to work […]

The Department of Energy awarded a subsidiary of Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., a potentially 10-year, $1-billion contract to operate a new uranium enrichment cascade the company built at the agency’s Portsmouth site near Piketon, Ohio. The competition was notionally open to all U.S.-controlled companies, but with two of the biggest uranium enrichment companies in […]

By Dan Parsons Engineers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory continue to upgrade the ventilation system at the plutonium pit production facility after two separate incidents where the system failed to blow contaminated air away from clean rooms where employees were working.  The most recent failure occurred on Aug. 22, when ventilation in the Plutonium […]

A former Navy employee and his wife will go to prison for more than 19 and more than 21 years, respectively, for conspiring to sell nuclear-submarine secrets to a nation reported to be Brazil, a federal judge ordered recently. Jonathan Toebbe, 44, a former Q-cleared Naval Reactors employee who smuggled technical data about Virginia-class attack […]

Local residents must retain a voice in what goes on at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina after federal responsibility for the complex shifts  to the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration in 2025, the head of the Citizens Advisory Board said Monday. Last month, DOE confirmed its Office of Environmental Management […]

Starting after Thanksgiving, citizens of the city of Aiken, S.C., can give the city council their two cents about how to spend $25 million in federal settlement money the city got because of a federal lawsuit involving the Department of Energy’s canceled plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site, local media reported Monday. Aiken […]

Pit production will continue to share space at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility with other missions for the foreseeable future, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration told a federal safety agency on Wednesday. The semi autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency is upgrading PF-4 to produce multiple war-ready pits some […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory again ordered employees and visitors to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 after transmission rates in the area rose, according to an internal lab message. “COVID-19 community levels have moved to high in Los Alamos and Santa Fe Counties,” reads the message, the text of which the Exchange Monitor read. […]

The Department of Energy on Friday released a draft environmental impact statement covering the next 15 years of operations at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. The public may comment on the draft through Jan. 03, according to a Federal Register notice. For the period spanning 2023-2035, the DOE has proposed 75 projects at the younger […]

Department of Energy small business contractor Boston Government Services, Oak Ridge, Tenn., was acquired in October by a private equity fund, according to someone familiar with the deal. Bernhard Capital Partners, Baton Rouge, La., was the buyer for Boston Government Services (BGS), according to this person. Harry Boston, founder and president of BGS, did not […]

The Tennessee Valley Authority was in the process of securing approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to increase production of tritium for nuclear weapons in one of the company’s reactors by November 2024, according to its latest annual earnings report. That date, disclosed in the authority’s latest 10-k filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, narrows […]