Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The NNSA’s new facility for manufacturing nuclear-weapon secondary stages will not be completed until August 2026: eight months later than expected, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration told Senators Wednesday in a hearing. Bechtel National, under contract to the Bechtel-led site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security, has been building the current incarnation of the […]

Nearly a year after kicking off the competitive bidding process, the Department of Energy must soon decide whether to extend its current contract for transportation of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M. The current five-year, $112-million Carlsbad Transportation Services small business contract, held by CAST Specialty Transportation, is scheduled to […]

Though the Cerro Pelado wildfire was still burning Friday, local officials in Los Alamos County, N.M., announced Thursday public school students will return to their normal schedules on Monday, May 16. Meanwhile employees of the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and the lab’s legacy cleanup contractor Newport News Nuclear BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) […]

Faulty missile tubes that earlier consumed months of schedule margin on the next-generation U.S. nuclear-armed, ballistic missile submarines are not pacing the schedule for the boats any more, the admiral in charge of the U.S. program said Thursday. “I retain margin on missile tubes,” Read Adm. Scott Pappano, the U.S. Navy’s program executive officer for […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said it established a new initiative to improve energy security and climate-change friendliness at its nationwide enterprise of labs, plants and sites. The Energy Resilient Infrastructure and Climate Adaptation (ERICA) initiative “will be a critical element of NNSA’s multi-faceted strategy to identify, prioritize, and implement infrastructure investments that increase […]

Earnings fell at BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., in the first quarter, which the company this week attributed to pension issues and lower productivity in the naval reactors business. Net earnings for the first quarter were $59 million or $0.64 per share, down from $69.7 million, or $0.73 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Quarterly revenue […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board this week added three new resident inspectors to monitor safety at Department of Energy sites in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Los Alamos, N.M. Clinton Jones is a new resident inspector for DOE’s Y-12 National Security Complex and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) […]

Michelle Reichert said she will retire May 20 as president and chief executive officer of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the outgoing management and operations contractor of the U.S.’ two main nuclear-weapon production plants. Bill Tindal, Consolidated Nuclear Security’s (CNS) chief operating officer, will become the acting president and CEO, according to a note from CNS board […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission allowed the Tennessee Valley Authority to work some people harder during an ongoing service outage at the Watts Bar 2 nuclear reactor, where the restart of tritium production for nuclear weapons has slipped to June from mid-May, the commission said. The outage now “is now scheduled to be completed by early […]

The Department of Energy extended Centrus Energy Corp.’s contract to build a 16-machine enrichment cascade for advanced nuclear fuel at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, adding six months and $12 million to the sole-source deal. DOE extended the 80/20 cost-share contract on April 20, boosting the agency’s share of the pact, awarded in 2019, […]

This week, the House Appropriations panel that writes the first draft of the Department of Energy’s annual budget bill called off a hearing with the agency’s top nuclear weapons and waste leaders minutes into the proceedings. The hearing got no further than opening statements and a few questions from Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the chair, […]

Earnings were largely up at Fluor, Irving, Texas, in the first quarter, which the international engineering and construction company — with contracts across the Department of Energy nuclear weapons complex — attributed to positive trends in its key markets. First quarter net earnings from continuing operations attributable to Fluor were $48 million, or $0.27 per […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., posted a net loss for the first quarter, when a drop in the flagship fuel brokerage business wiped out a gain from other uranium sales and the continuing steadiness of an advanced enrichment contract, now in its final days, with the Department of Energy, the company said Friday. Centrus lost […]

Authorities in New Mexico said Thursday afternoon they plan to use a controlled burn to give the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory and the surrounding county more protection from the Cerro Pelado fire in the Jemez Mountains. A controlled burn is planned along Alamo trail to combat the fire that has burned 29,000 […]

Employees placed on unpaid leave after receiving religious exemptions to Los Alamos National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate were cleared to return to work this week after the lab declared a return to normal operations, an internal memo shows. “As of this spring, case rates have abated considerably, almost 100% of staff are vaccinated, and we […]

A federal court could soon decide whether to hear the case of several Consolidated Nuclear Security employees who sued the Y-12 National Security Complex prime contractor in 2020 alleging lost wages. Last week, the three employees, who seek to create a class-action lawsuit, filed a second amended complaint with the U.S. District Court for Eastern […]

President Joe Biden’s plans to cease development of a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile and to cancel a refresh for the B83 megaton-capable gravity bomb won’t make it through Congress, a key Republican House member predicted this week. “The president’s budget’s talking about getting rid of the sea-launched cruise missile and some of the B83 gravity […]

Effective mid-July, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to split its two main procurement offices in Washington into three and, in the process, eliminate the Office of Acquisition and Project Management and the Office of Infrastructure and Operations, agency Administrator Jill Hruby said Monday in an email to all hands. After the split, the duties […]

Certain people sickened after exposure to radiation from either atmospheric nuclear-weapon tests or uranium mining would get two more years to file for government compensation if a bill passed unanimously by the Senate last week becomes law. The Senate unanimously passed the bipartisan Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Extension Act of 2022 on Thursday, giving sickened atmospheric […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration won’t be able to make 80 pits annually by 2030 even if Congress throws more money at the problem this year, the agency’s top official and the Pentagon’s acquisition chief both told Senators Wednesday in a hearing “The nuclear weapons council stands by the assessment that was provided, that I […]

A facility the National Nuclear Security Administration is building to remove plutonium from the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., could arrive a little later and cost a little more than thought only a year ago, the agency wrote in its fiscal year 2023 budget request. Unspecified design changes recommended by site prime Savannah River […]

Even after excluding teleworkers from its accounting of COVID-19 cases around the enterprise, the National Nuclear Security Administration counted 132 active, confirmed cases of the disease among its workforce at the end of April, more than double the tally from the end of March. At the same time, a spokesperson at agency headquarters in Washington […]

The Pentagon and the National Nuclear Security Administration are still “sorting out” exactly how many nuclear-weapon triggers the military needs and by when, the head of the civilian agency said in congressional testimony this week. Law requires the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency to make 80 pits a year by 2030 — a goal […]

The round up in last week’s Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor [Vol. 26, No. 16] should have said that the Savannah River Site took delivery of HEPA equipment for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition program. The story “Nuclear Fuel Services to start weapons-uranium work under sole-source NNSA contract” [Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, Vol. 26, No. […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory appointed Evelyn Mullen executive officer for weapons, the New Mexico nuclear-weapons design laboratory announced Monday. In her new role, Mullen will be an “executive leader in the organization, with a focus on both tactical and strategic operational needs,” according to Los Alamos’ press release. She will report to Robert Webster, the lab’s […]

The Department of Defense wants to hire a new director for strategic deterrence and capability to oversee “efforts to modernize and sustain the nuclear deterrent,” according to a recent want-ad on the official federal jobs board. The director would be responsible for a swath of nuclear-weapons tasks that were once organized under the now-defunct post […]

Honeywell’s wholly owned subsidiary National Engineering and Technology Solutions of Sandia will be the prime contractor for the Sandia National Laboratories for another five years, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced this week. The semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said in a press release that it exercised five options on National Engineering and […]