Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Six weeks after telling unvaccinated feds and contractors to wear masks and be tested regularly for COVID-19, President Joe Biden on Thursday took things a step further and said such workers must either take the vaccine or find another job.   “If you want to work with the federal government, do business with us, get vaccinated,” […]

In a legal settlement announced this week in a regulatory filing, uranium fuel broker and enrichment technology developer Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., said it got the millions of dollars it was seeking from the Department of Energy for the old U.S. Enrichment Corp.’s pension fund this week. Centrus will collect about $43.5 million from […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration in August confirmed that four more employees of the nuclear security enterprise died of COVID-19 during an explosive summer case surge, even as some federal contractors took their most forceful workforce vaccination measures to date. In the final week of August, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had 419 confirmed, […]

The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday approved about $425 million in funding above the president’s request for nuclear-weapons infrastructure in fiscal year 2022 — money that corresponding appropriations bills would not yet allow the National Nuclear Security Administration to spend. The authorized funding came from an amendment to the committee’s 2022 National Defense Authorization […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would have to report to Congress about the benefits of competitively awarding management and operations contracts for nuclear weapons sites by March 1, if the House’s version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act becomes law. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who holds the seat recently vacated by longtime Armed Services […]

Construction of plutonium pit factories should continue more or less as planned for another year-and-a-half, until the Joe Biden administration wraps up a nuclear posture review and the Savannah River Site delivers a baseline cost estimate for a pit factory there, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee said Tuesday. “We are sort of […]

The House Armed Services Committee wants the Air Force to review its approach to the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, to include identifying potential steps for reducing costs and introducing more opportunities for competition in the operation and maintenance phase. The panel approved its version of the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) […]

NorthStar Medical technologies, Beloit, Wis., inked a $37-million cooperative agreement with the National Nuclear Security Administration to produce the medical isotope Molybdenum-99, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency announced Aug. 27. NorthStar, which had to put up matching funds to get the $37 million from the agency, will use the cash to produce the isotope […]

Jill Hruby, the new administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) continued her tour of the nuclear security enterprise last week, dropping by both the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. A resident of New Mexico at the time when she was confirmed to lead […]

Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor will not be published on Aug. 27, 2021 while the Exchange Monitor takes its annual August recess. Look for the next issue in your inbox on Friday, Sept. 3, 2021.

Centrus Energy Corp. has identified about $9 million worth of pandemic-related expenses at  its new enrichment cascade in Ohio and wants the Department of Energy to help defray the costs, the company in a regulatory filing. “[W]e plan to seek additional funding commitments from DOE for the additional costs,” Centrus wrote Aug. 13 in its latest […]

An ad hoc committee of the South Carolina legislature was scheduled to discuss on Aug. 24 which of the counties surrounding the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will share in a $600 million federal plutonium settlement. “I want to make sure our friends from Aiken understand that Aiken County is not the only consideration […]

Shortly after the House and Senate united to protect the Department of Energy’s inertial confinement fusion program from some proposed austerity next fiscal year, the program’s emblematic National Ignition Facility shattered its own record for neutron yield. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced the milestone this week, about a week after the Aug. 8 shot […]

Operations, including work supporting plutonium pit manufacturing, are back on at Los Alamos’ PF-4 plutonium facility following a 200-gallon flood precipitated by an untrained worker operating a wet van system in the future pit factory. “After three weeks the positive pressure circulating chilled water (PPCCW) system has been restored, with all affected processes being operational […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration has released a sources sought note seeking information about a new uranium reserve program that Congress earlier this year ordered the agency to establish. According to the note, the reserve would be a stockpile of uranium hexafluoride converted from newly produced, domestic natural uranium acquired from deposits at existing sites. […]

Earnings rose at Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News, Va., in the 2nd quarter, which the shipbuilder and Department of Energy contractor attributed in part to COVID-19’s effects last year on the Virginia-class attack submarine program. Net earnings for the second quarter ended June 30 were $129 million, compared with $53 million in the second quarter of […]

A Republican bid to add the better part of $4 billion for construction of plutonium pit factories to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget failed in the Senate in the Senate this week. A trio of defense-minded Republicans proposed the multiyear funding first as an amendment to the $1 trillion infrastructure bill approved Tuesday, then […]

Five new-to-the-organization faces will join the new Los Alamos directorate in charge of turning the lab into the first national center for plutonium pit production since Rocky Flats ceased production in 1989. Three of these five managers were to be on the job Monday, with two colleagues to follow later this month and next, according […]

This week, not long after senior nuclear-weapons managers gathered outside of Washington and lamented programmatic gear-grinding caused by what they called premature attempts to pin down costs, the House Armed Services chair asked the president to consider shrinking the arsenal, in part over concerns about its affordability. The Biden administration’s forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review should […]

The Air Force this week launched a non-nuclear Minuteman III missile, carrying what the service called a “high-fidelity joint test assembly,” from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The Air Force announced the early-morning launch in a press release. Supporting the test launch from the west coast were Air Force personnel from the 341st Missile Wing […]

Bradley Wallin will lead Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s nuclear weapons programs, settling a succession that began when Kim Budil was promoted to lab director earlier this year, the design lab announced this week. Separately, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that Jeff Harrell, the federal manager for the agency’s Sandia Field Office, retired in […]

Facing a tough comp that included a big one-time payment, profits fell year-over-year at Centrus, Bethesda, Md., in the second quarter of 2021, though core operations remained essentially healthy and the company scored a crucial regulatory blessing for a new enrichment cascade. The fuel reseller and enrichment technology developer posted quarterly net income attributable to […]

With growing federal alarm over the surging numbers of new COVID-19 cases, especially among the unvaccinated, the Department of Energy on Friday confirmed it is imploring government contractors to find ways to get workers to take their shots. The agency acknowledged the effort, spearheaded by Tarak Shah, chief of staff to Secretary Jennifer Granholm, after […]

ALEXANDRIA — Congress should not relax legal deadlines to produce plutonium pits this decade, even though the National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged it won’t meet at least one of them,nuclear-weapons managers here said this week. “I would say no,” Michael Thompson, said here Wednesday when asked whether Congress should change the law so that […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration would essentially receive its 2022 budget request under a spending bill the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up Wednesday, matching the funding the full House approved last week. Unlike the House, however, Senate Appropriators approved the $72 million the Joe Biden administration sought for the planned W93 submarine launched ballistic missile […]

The Department of Energy is taking steps to implement White House policy to stem the tide of increasing COVID-19 infections by again ordering mask wearing indoors, giving more time off to have family members vaccinated and holding off on many in-person meetings. Effective immediately, “any DOE-hosted in-person meeting, conference, or event that will be attended […]