Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Confirmed, active cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration enterprise jumped after the Thanksgiving holiday but remained about 70% lower than they were at this time last year, according to the latest agency data. There were 277 confirmed active cases across the agency’s labs, plants and sites, a spokesperson at National Nuclear Security […]

Plutonium pits, tank waste and contractor oversight again topped the Department of Energy inspector general’s list of the agency’s biggest management challenge, according to the latest edition, released before Thanksgiving. The most recent in the rolling series of special reports, “Management Challenges at the Department of Energy,” also assigned the same top priority to DOE’s […]

An ex-Sandia National Laboratories employee who racked up fraudulent charges of thousands of dollars or more on his company credit card is trying to stay out of prison, according to a sentencing memo filed before Thanksgiving. “If sentenced to pay a fine and be placed on probation for a period of five years, Mr. [Joshua] […]

The Senate this week unanimously confirmed Corey Hinderstein to be deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Security Administration. A think-tanker with a previous detail to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under her belt, Hinderstein was on the Senate’s executive calendar for 40 days after clearing the Senate Armed Services […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Thursday it put together the first war-ready B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb on Nov. 23, paving the way to create an estimated 480 of the weapons, which will homogenize four existing variants of the bomb.  The agency “anticipates starting full-scale production in May 2022 and completing all needed production in […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration was scheduled to brief losing bidders next week about the agency’s decision to entrust a team led by Fluor, Irving, Texas, with management of the country’s two main nuclear-weapon production sites, sources said this week. The winning team, Nuclear Production One (NPOne) — which also includes junior partner Amentum, Germantown, […]

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby continued her tour of the nuclear security enterprise this week, with the joint Pentagon-Department of Energy Nuclear Weapons Council riding along, the agency tweeted. Hruby, sworn in in July, has been checking in with each of the NNSA’s big plants and sites throughout the summer and the […]

ARLINGTON, VA. — The head of Naval Reactors this week invited defense industry executives here to think about how they’d contribute to a three-way effort to transfer nuclear submarine propulsion to Australia — but he didn’t invite any contributions. “We have 18 months to go and figure out how to deliver a platform, a capability, […]

Australia is not planning to create a domestic nuclear industry to support the highly enriched uranium-powered submarines the country hopes to build using U.S. and U.K. technology, Canberra’s ambassador said this week. “The subs will be using HEU [highly enriched uranium] and we’re just working out now the arrangements for what that will mean in […]

A Sandia National Laboratories building that hosts the labs’ power sources technology programs has mostly reopened after being damaged by a fire last month, though the room where the fire started remained closed as of Wednesday, a spokesperson said. The Oct. 11 fire involved a lithium battery and forced the evacuation of the aging Building […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is almost finished with a proof-of-concept unit that will kick off mass production of the homogenized version of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, an agency spokesperson said this week. “The B61-12 program is nearing the completion of the FPU [first production unit] milestone, and we expect to make an announcement […]

President Biden on Wednesday announced his intention to nominate Dimitri Kusnezov, a scientist and Energy Department official helping with international partnerships on artificial intelligence at the department, to head the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security. Kathryn Coulter Mitchell is the current acting under secretary for Science and Technology (S&T) at […]

As the Biden administration conducts its Nuclear Posture Review, the administration is opposing a draft defense authorization bill provision that would prohibit a reduction below 400 Boeing Minuteman III ICBMs. Section 1626 of a House report on its version of the bill “would prohibit the Department of Defense from reducing, or preparing to reduce, the […]

Editor’s note, 11/19/2021, 12:41 p.m. Eastern time. The story was changed to show that the program has two months of margin, according to the Navy’s program executive officer for strategic submarines.   The Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program could be down to as little as two months of margin, the admiral in charge of the program […]

Before it even started, the Department of Energy this week cancelled a competition for a Savannah River Site management and operations contract worth billions, citing an increase of National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear weapons work at the site. “The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is indefinitely delaying the Final Request for Proposal (RFP) for the […]

Amid some intra-agency controversy about the site’s contractual future, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Jill Hruby visited the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., this week, the agency tweeted. Frank Rose, the deputy administrator, and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) were along for the visit.   President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, […]

Exchangemonitor.com has refreshed its website and now posts news and commentary from across the defense- and civilian-nuclear industries in (near) real time.  If you haven’t gotten used to checking exchangemonitor.com throughout the day, we could hardly blame you. Our old website didn’t allow us to push updates to you as quickly as we could write […]

Australia will modify an existing submarine design when it acquires nuclear propulsion under the new AUKUS trilateral partnership with the United Kingdom and the U.S., Canberra’s ambassador to the states said in a virtual presentation this week. “We didn’t want to spend years playing around with a design and so with our American and English […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is still hammering the Department of Energy about a nearly decade-old recommendation to stiffen safety requirements at Savannah River Site’s Building 235-F to avoid a plutonium release from the aging structure. In a Nov. 2 letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, Joyce Connery, the board chair, praised DOE […]

Declining to block the lab’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, a judge ruled Monday that Los Alamos National Laboratory Employees who will not take a required COVID-19 vaccine and are unsatisfied with receiving unpaid leave as their religious exemption from the shot must hash things out with the lab in arbitration. Pending the outcomes of other lawsuits […]

A major subproject to clear out space for new pit-manufacturing equipment at the Los Alamos National Laboratory will cost about $530 million and finish ripping up old glove boxes and equipment by 2025 or so, a lab spokesperson said. In the decontamination and decommissioning of Los Alamos’ PF-4 Plutonium Facility, which is being expanded to […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., on Wednesday posted net income of about $41.5 million, or $2.95 a share for the 2021 third quarter, up from a loss of $7 million or 83 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Quarterly revenue was about $91 million, up from more than $57.5 million a year ago, mostly […]

More COVID-19 vaccine refusers have joined a lawsuit against Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the management and operations contractor at the Savannah River Site, and have amended their lawsuit to list fear of death from vaccines as a reason a federal judge should block the contractor’s vaccine mandate. The amended complaint filed this week fine-tuned the […]

Though it has posted a loss for the year so far overall, Fluor, Irving, Texas, ratcheted up its earnings guidance for continuing operations in 2021 after boosting the bottom line and booking a big contract extension from DOE, the company reported this week. Also, in an earnings presentation Friday, Fluor — whose team at the […]

Iran must be prevented from fabricating nuclear weapons, the former leader of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation program said in a recent speech, as world powers attempt to revive a 2015 nuclear pact with the Middle Eastern country. “One thing that I need to emphasis is: Iran should not, and cannot, make nuclear weapons,” […]

The Navy exercised a one-year, $1-billion option on Fluor Marine Propulsion’s Naval Reactors contract, which includes management of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s multi-site Naval Nuclear Laboratory in Idaho, New York and Pennsylvania, the parent company said this week. Fluor Marine Propulsion, Arlington, Va., snagged the naval labs business from Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corp. in 2018 as […]

Fresh off a big win at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site last week, BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., reported Oct. 29 that profits dipped a little in the third quarter as revenue took a bit of a tumble. BWXT Technologies (BWXT) posted net income of about $60 million, or 63 cents a share in […]