Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Second-quarter profits rose sharply at nuclear-fuel broker Centrus Energy, Bethesda, Md., as Russia’s war against Ukraine made uranium more expensive and spooked some buyers into locking in the current price, the company’s CEO said Friday. “There’s an advantage to buying sooner if it’s going to be cheaper,” Daniel Poneman, Centrus’ CEO, said Friday during a […]

The South Carolina plant that puts together the rods that help the National Nuclear Security Administration top off the tritium reservoirs of U.S. nuclear weapons cleared an environmental hurdle last week that sets the facility up to operate for another 40 years. The extension, recommended July 29 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, would more than […]

The final tab for getting the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear generator back in shape to produce power for homes and businesses and irradiate tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons will be about $600 million, the Tennessee Valley Authority said Monday in a regulatory filing. On July 1, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) finished installing four […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration this week split its two headquarters-based procurement offices into three, the head of the agency said. Effective Monday, the agency’s Washington-based procurement bureaucracy comprises: the Office of Partnership Services; the Office of Infrastructure; and the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health. Peter Rodrik is the acting associate administrator for partnership […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration now expects to produce the proof-of-concept article for the refurbished W80 nuclear cruise-missile warhead by the end of fiscal year 2027, roughly two years later than planned. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency will turn out the W80-4 first production unit by Sept. 30, 2027 instead of some […]

In the wake of three such incidents reported over the last year, Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, asked all hands to report racist acts and threats at nuclear-weapon sites. In an email dated Wednesday, Hruby slammed the acts as “offensive,” “inappropriate” and warned that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would […]

The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets. At the end of fiscal 2021 DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had about $10.9 billion in total carryover balances and the Office of Environmental […]

The inventory of defense-related transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico amounts to more than 3,300 containers, but most are not “ready to ship” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office manager said last week. In Technical Area 55, Triad National Security, the National Nuclear […]

With the retirement of a top executive, Sharon Smoot will step in as president of BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group effective Aug. 1, the company said in a press release Wednesday morning. In her new role, Smoot will be responsible for the operations group’s complete range of nuclear components and services, “including the manufacture of […]

U.S. District Judge Julianna Michelle Childs, who presided over a number of Department of Energy nuclear cases in South Carolina, and who was publicly discussed as a contender for a U.S. Supreme vacancy, has won confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Childs was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit in a […]

Congress should enact legislation to clarify the Department of Energy’s authority to sell depleted uranium to private entities, the Government Accountability Office said this week, because such a move could curb the $7.2 billion cost to dispose of the material. As of September 2021, the feds estimate it could cost DOE $7.2 billion to convert […]

Northrop Grumman’s top executive on Thursday rejected any government concerns that the company isn’t complying with a consent order it agreed to in 2018 when it acquired Orbital ATK to ensure it remains a fair supplier of solid rocket motors to competitors in the aerospace and defense industries. The company has disclosed in its quarterly […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday unveiled the year’s most generous 2023 budget proposal for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs, beating the White House’s ask by almost $700 million and agreeing with authorizers’ plans to pile unrequested money into plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site. As the House of Representatives did in […]

Northern New Mexico Integrated Security, a joint venture between incumbent Centerra Group and Tsay Construction and Services, a small business with tribal ownership, won a five-year security services contract at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, the lab announced Wednesday. Triad National Security, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s management contractor for Los Alamos, […]

Vendors who want to sell uranium to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for the agency’s planned uranium reserve need not have produced the uranium themselves, so long as they have operated a domestic uranium facility at some point since 2009, the agency clarified this week. Furthermore, in the amendment posted Wednesday to its solicitation […]

Bill Tindal retired as chief executive officer of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Bechtel National-led management contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites, a company spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. “We shared with employees yesterday that Bill has retired,” the spokesperson said. Gene Sievers, site manager for Y-12 National Security Complex, is now […]

Joel Duling will resign as president of BWT Technology’s mainstay Nuclear Operations Group effective July 29, the company wrote in a regulatory filing dated Monday. Duling informed the company of his decision on July 12, according to the 8-K filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. “Joel Duling is retiring from BWXT to pursue other […]

The full House this week passed a bundle of six appropriations bills that would provide roughly the request funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs and, contrary to the will of House authorizers and President Joe Biden, keep the B83 nuclear gravity bomb in play. The bill also provides the requested funding for the […]

In a few years, the Department of Energy could make its practices for categorizing hazards found in nuclear facilities a formal federal rule, the agency wrote in a recent letter to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. DOE would not begin the rulemaking until 2025 at the earliest, according to the June 27 letter to […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released all the unclassified details of its fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, showing lawmakers in that chamber disagree with their House counterparts on little except by how much to exceed the White House’s request for construction of a new plutonium pit factory in South Carolina. The […]

A Consolidated Nuclear Security employee who in June hung a noose at a construction site at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., was fired from their job, according to a statement a building trades union posted online Friday. The North America’s Building Trades Unions had offered a $200,000 reward for information leading […]

The House this week passed a National Defense Authorization Act that authorized more funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs than requested and allows continued work on a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile. Democrats narrowly control the House, but more than enough of them crossed the aisle during floor debates this week to fend of […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management has selected a manager from the semi autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, Cathy Tullis, to be its next chief of staff effective July 17. Tullis, currently chief of staff for the associate administrator for management and budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), will fill the […]

Less than a month remains for anyone interested in selling domestic uranium to the government for a congressionally directed to submit their bids to the National Nuclear Security Administration. In a 2021 spending bill, Congress appropriated $75 million to the semiautonomous Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons agency to set up a 1-million-pound natural uranium reserve […]

The Congressionally-created safety watchdog for nuclear defense facilities was not denied access to any Department of Energy records or personnel during the first six months of 2022. In a regular update to Congress, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) said July 1 that the Secretary of Energy did not deny any written requests for […]

Repeated changes in the the National Nuclear Security Administration’s strategy for producing new plutonium pits, plus the agency’s admission in 2021 that it cannot make a legal production deadline, is grounds for forcing the government to conduct an extensive environmental review of its two planned pit factories and other sites, a coalition of environmental groups […]