Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

With COVID-19 vaccines now widely available in the U.S., federal agencies including the Department of Energy are supposed to set plans by Monday to return personnel to offices. The White House Office of Management and Budget gave federal agencies until July 19 to “finalize their phased plans for reentry and post-reentry,” according to a June […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said this week it completed the first production unit of a refurbished submarine-launched nuclear warhead, setting the stage for a mass-production run that could begin early next year and which will fit the weapon with a new detonation system rated for 30 more years at sea. Workers at the Pantex […]

The Secretary of Energy recognized three National Nuclear Security Administration projects that demonstrated significant results in completing projects under budget and ahead of schedule, the agency announced this week. The Secretary’s Project Management Achievement Awards at the NNSA went to the Exascale Class Computing Cooling Equipment project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New […]

While nobody had walked off the job at deadline for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, some 240 people were set to go on strike at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over what the union called the management’s refusal to negotiate terms of a mandatory on-call policy for some craft workers. The Society of Professionals, […]

The Savannah River Site has been running a four-shift glove box operation at its main plutonium-disposal program in the site’s K-Area for a little more than a month now, a site spokesperson said this week. The Aiken, S.C., site ratcheted up to four shifts from two on June 1, the spokesperson wrote Tuesday in an […]

On a party line 33-24 vote Friday, the House Appropriations Committee approved a 2022 civilian nuclear weapons budget that includes requested funding for proposed plutonium pit factories but withholds funds for a few smaller nuclear weapons programs. The full House had not scheduled a vote on the bill at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & […]

The U.S. Air Force on July 7 awarded Northrop Grumman a contract that could be worth nearly $3.9 billion for ground subsystems support for the Boeing Minuteman III ICBMs until 2039. Northrop Grumman was the incumbent, as the company had won a $963 million contract for such support in January 2015. Given its long experience […]

Shipments of transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant from National Nuclear Security Administration operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico were set to resume this week after being on hold since an ignition scare in February, according to the Department of Energy. “After a careful review of the drum event” […]

Terry Wallace retired from the Los Alamos National Laboratory last week after a nearly 20-year lab career, which he capped by running the site on an interim basis in 2018, during the transition to non-profit management and operations contractor Triad National Security. Wallace’s last day was June 30, the lab announced in a retrospective published last […]

The Joe Biden administration plans to nominate Sandia National Laboratories alum and State Department veteran Mallory Stewart to be assistant secretary for arms control, verification and compliance, the post responsible for ensuring the last remaining nuclear arms treaty is functioning as intended. The White House announced its intent to nominate Stewart just before the U.S. […]

Responders at the Nevada National Security Site have completely contained the wildfires that broke out there last week in the site’s western region at Area 16, Area 29 and Area 30, the site said this week. The total estimated burn area was about 275 acres, according to a Tuesday press release from site management and […]

The Secretary of Energy did not deny any written requests for information from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in the six months ended June 30, the chair of the independent federal board reported recently to Congress. “The Board has no denials of access to information to report in the past six months,” Defense Nuclear […]

In a long-awaited legal settlement over six years of mislabeled, radioactive waste shipments to Nevada, the Department of Energy agreed to tighten waste-inspection standards at nuclear weapon sites and overhaul its solid waste permit with the state by early next year, Carson City’s top environmental official said this week. DOE will also have to revise […]

SOC, a Day & Zimmermann company, filed a bid protest June 28 over the Department of Energy’s decision to stand by a February award of a security services contract to Securitas-led SRS Critical Infrastructure Security. It is the second challenge filed by a losing bidder with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the  $1-billion contract awarded at […]

Environmentalists this week sued to stop the National Nuclear Security Administration from building a plutonium pit plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., alleging violation of environmental law. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should have to reopen the environmental record for the planned Savannah River Plutonium Pit Production Facility (SRPPF) and a […]

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 […]