Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

Centrus Energy got approval in June from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate a 16-machine cascade at DOE’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, that is intended to take uranium to the upper bounds of low-enrichment. Centrus can operate the cascade until May 31, 2022, under the license amendment the commission approved June 11. The Bethesda, Md.-based […]

The proof-of-concept plutonium pit for the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile warhead is still on the slate for fiscal year 2023, but cranking out 30 copies annually just three years after that will be “challenging,” the director of the world’s first nuclear weapons lab said last week. But “I would rather push to a timeline that […]

North Wind Site Services has won a Department of Energy remediation contract, potentially worth $22 million over five years, at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Niskayuna, N.Y., the agency said this week in a press release. West Virginia-based North Wind Site Services is part of North Wind Group, which in turn is owned by […]

A U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina agreed last week to grant a Department of Justice motion to dismiss a False Claims Act lawsuit filed in 2016 against Fluor and the Fluor-led management contractor for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site over millions of dollars in reimbursement for home office expenses. The one-page […]

The United Kingdom was scheduled to renationalize management of its nuclear weapons production complex this week after almost 30 years of letting industry hold the reins. The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) was to become a wholly-owned arms-length body controlled by the U.K. Ministry of Defence on Thursday, ending 20-plus years of management under the Jacobs-led […]

After failing to build a plutonium recycling plant at the Savannah River Site after 20 years of planning and billions spent, the chair of the House Armed Services Committee said this week he doubts the National Nuclear Security Administration can turn the failed project into a plutonium pit factory. “I do not trust Savannah River,” […]

More wildfires at the Nevada National Security Site, reported a couple weeks after responders contained the 24,000-acre Cherrywood fire, were “successfully controlled” and about 80% contained at deadline Friday, the site said. In a statement Thursday, the Nevada National Security Site estimated that between 260 acres and 275 acres burned in the western section of […]

WASHINGTON — COVID-19-related delays at the Department of Energy and its vendors might delay refurbishment of a warhead intended for next-generation nuclear-tipped air-launched cruise missiles, the acting head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said this week in congressional testimony. “So there’s no near-term impacts with that but there could be a schedule adjustment,” Charles […]

WASHINGTON — Personnel at the Nevada National Security Site have fired the second in a series of three planned subcritical plutonium tests called Nightshade, the acting head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said this week. Charles Verdon, the agency’s acting administrator, confirmed the test firing to Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor after he testified Wednesday […]

The Joe Biden administration’s nuclear posture review will be bundled with a larger national defense strategy to be released in early 2022, but the administration plans to make a “significant signal” about U.S. force structure before that, a senior Pentagon official said this week at a virtual conference. “The Biden administration and the interim national […]

Later this year and sometime next year, the Savannah River Site will install a crucial pair of upgrades at the H-Canyon chemical separations facility to help site personnel prepare plutonium from a Japanese reactor for on-site solidification and, eventually, deep-geologic disposal elsewhere. H-Canyon will get a new tank later this year and a new electrolytic […]

It may take almost a year longer than recently expected to fully certify the F-35A to internally carry one or two B61-12 nuclear gravity bombs, but the head of the service’s Nuclear Weapons Center said the nuclear end of things isn’t what’s pacing the process. “The timing right now I think to get to full […]

The Pantex Plant wrapped up production of the W80-1 Alt 369, which replaced limited life components for the warhead that tips the Air Force’s AGM-86b Air Launched Cruise Missile, the Amarillo, Texas, plant said recently. Pantex announced the milestone in a press release earlier this month. Limited life components include tritium reservoirs, neutron generators and power sources. […]

The acting head of DOE nuclear weapons programs on Thursday passed on a chance to say that a planned plutonium pit factory in South Carolina will cost as much per unit as a cheaper pit factory planned for New Mexico. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans a larger pit factory, the Savannah River Plutonium […]

Active COVID-19 cases at the National Nuclear Security Administration fell almost 47% in June as vaccination rates across the country continued to inch upward and life returned to something resembling pre-pandemic normalcy at the start of the summer. Active cases at the DOE nuclear weapons agency had at deadline fallen to 51 in the last […]

National Nuclear Security Administration shipments of transuranic waste from the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., remain suspended following a February drum sparking incident, a spokesperson for the disposal site said Wednesday. “Shipments from LANL-NNSA [Los Alamos National Laboratory-National Nuclear Security Administration] remain paused,” a […]

The United States and Russia seek to “lay the groundwork for future arms control” with bilateral talks that will start “in the near future,” the presidents of both countries said in a joint statement this week following talks in Geneva. In the English-language statement released Wednesday by the White House, President Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, […]

By suggesting that the Navy cancel a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, the service’s acting secretary imperilled arms control negotiations and undercut President Joe Biden, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said during a hearing this week. “Everybody at the Pentagon needs to understand the severity of the actions you have taken and its implications for the United […]

The House Armed Services Committee will hold its full committee mark-up for the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on September 1, pushing back the annual process due to the delayed submission of the president’s budget request. The House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday also announced plans to have its defense and homeland security subcommittees […]

Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., said Monday it is now licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enrich uranium to about 20% U-235 by weight in Piketon, Ohio — and that company plans a demonstration by early next year. Centrus is under contract to produce high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) for the Department of Energy under […]

As far as the Department of Energy could tell this week, the hack of a small, veteran-owned consulting business in Albuquerque, N.M., did not compromise any National Nuclear Security Administration data. “The Department of Energy is aware of the cyberattack against Sol Oriens, a veteran-owned consulting firm whose clients include the Department of Energy/National Nuclear […]

The Air Force’s top nuclear procurement officer on Monday positioned the service’s effort to build its next nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile as a way to shore up the nuclear-industrial base for decades and create a weapon that arms control treaties can’t kill. The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the first lot of which which prime Northrop […]

The head of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee is dissatisfied with current legal checks on the President’s authority to launch nuclear weapons, he said in a hearing Wednesday, during which he otherwise offered no other indication that he was eager to disrupt current nuclear weapons policy. The President’s sole authority to launch U.S. […]

The Air Force’s top nuclear procurement officer on Monday positioned the service’s effort to build its next nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile as a way to shore up the nuclear-industrial base for decades and create a weapon that arms control treaties can’t kill. The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the first lot of which which prime Northrop […]

The head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board told federal contractors Thursday her agency could approve a memorandum of understanding on its “rules of the road” with the Department of Energy as early as next month. “We did have a great conversation with Deputy Secretary [David] Turk earlier this year and “it looks like […]

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense did not have advanced warnings about the acting secretary of the Navy’s memo last week that urged the service to cancel a planned nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile.  “I am not familiar with the memo nor was I consulted, but as soon as […]

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory published new research about how near-surface detonations can affect nuclear-weapon yields, the California-based design lab said Monday. The findings, summarized in a paper titled “the reflection of a blast wave by a very intense explosion,” were published last week in Proceedings A of the Royal Society Publishing. The authors are […]