Here’s this week’s collection of quick-hit news about, and with implications for, U.S. nuclear security and the nuclear security enterprise.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments will soon investigate “the introduction of unauthorized electronic equipment (Panasonic pan-tilt-zoom cameras) into security areas for over two years and the potential unauthorized disclosure of classified information at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories,” according to a note posted online late last week.
The Honeywell-led Sandia prime contractor, National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, discovered what had been going on in February, according to Enterprise Assessments.
The magnetized liner inertial fusion method generated more neutrons than it ever has at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z Pulsed Power Facility — the Z machine, — in Albuquerque, N.M.
The Z machine is one of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) three main high-energy density physics facilities that can subject small targets made of various materials to extremes of temperature and pressure similar to the early stages of a nuclear detonation.
Read more about the recent Z Machine milestone from Sandia.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is promoting a new website to help other countries learn more about international nuclear non-proliferation rules, standards and safeguards.
The Reporting Assistant for International Nuclear Safeguards (RAINS) , (https://rains.doe.gov) is “a website intended to assist partners with the requirements surrounding international nuclear safeguards,” the agency wrote in a press release.
Next week, the National Nuclear Security Administration will host a second virtual meeting with the public to discuss a planned release of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a notice posted online.
The second virtual meeting about venting flanged tritium waste containers is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 5, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., Mountain time, according to the notice. Those interested in attending can register online.
Los Alamos decided to host these meetings after members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation, including both its U.S. Senators, asked it to.
Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies will discuss its financial results for the third quarter, ended Sept. 30, during a 9 a.m. Monday conference call with Wall Street analysts.
During the second quarter, BWX Technologies (BWXT) reported net income was up $5 million to about $64 million, or $0.67 per share, from about $59 million, or $0.62 per share, a year earlier.
In addition to being a major contractor for the Department of Energy’s weapons complex, BWXT also manufactures nuclear reactor components and fuel for U.S. Navy submarines and warships and performs services for commercial nuclear power plants.
Steven Lawrence, the longtime manager of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada Field Office, tweeted this week that he is receiving chemotherapy.
Lawrence had been the manager of the agency’s Nevada field office since 2013, but an NNSA spokesperson said this week that Lawrence left that position in January to become senior technical advisor for field operations at office of the NNSA administrator.
An NNSA organization chart dated current as of August 2020 shows Dave Bowman as the acting manager of the Nevada field office. The previous organization chart, which was dated current as of July 2020, showed Lawrence as the full-time manager. Among his other jobs, Bowman has been the deputy associate administrator for counterterrorism & counterproliferation at NNSA headquarters in Washington.
