Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Department of Energy on Friday issued a request for qualifications for developers interested in installing carbon-free electric power projects of 200 megawatts or more at the Idaho National Laboratory. The request for qualifications is part of DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative to tap unused land on Cold War and Manhattan Project sites for […]

Michelle Sandoval, an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is again vying to represent New Mexico’s 57th district in the statehouse.  Sandoval, who unsuccessfully ran for the State House seat in 2022, announced another bid for the office as a Democrat on her Facebook page and in the Rio Rancho Observer. Three years ago, […]

Stormwater discharges from legacy nuclear work at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the subject of litigation in recent years, will be the focus of a virtual meeting on Wednesday. The DOE Office of Environmental Management and its Los Alamos cleanup prime, Newport News Nuclear-BWXT Los Alamos (N3B), said in […]

Michelle Sandoval, an employee at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, is again vying to represent New Mexico’s 57th district in the statehouse.  Sandoval, who unsuccessfully ran for the State House seat in 2022, announced another bid for the office as a Democrat on her Facebook page and in the Rio Rancho Observer. Three years ago, […]

The Los Alamos County Council in New Mexico plans to honor retiring County Manager Steve Lynne during its regular Tuesday night meeting. Lynne will retire the following day, March 1, after working for Los Alamos County over 28 years according to a notice on the municipal board’s website. Lynne was deputy county manager in July […]

While the Department of Energy is satisfying a New Mexico push to move more transuranic waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., the Idaho National Laboratory remains the underground mine’s top shipper, a DOE panel heard Thursday. Although a 2019 update to a legal settlement between the […]

“Downwind” producers said this week their 2023 documentary about the aftermath of decades of nuclear testing at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, can be seen on Peacock, the same platform where the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Oppenheimer” is available for streaming this weekend. According to a press release, “Downwind” can help the public understand […]

Honeywell this month marked its 75th year of work at what is now the Kansas City National Security Campus in Kansas City, Mo. Run by the National Nuclear Security Administration today, the campus relocated in 2014 from the old Bannister Federal Complex, portions of which were scheduled for transfer to the Department of Energy’s Office […]

“Downwind” producers said this week their 2023 documentary about the aftermath of decades of nuclear testing at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, can be seen on Peacock, the same platform where the Oscar-nominated blockbuster “Oppenheimer” is available for streaming this weekend. According to a press release, “Downwind” can help the public understand […]

A bill that would have let New Mexico and Los Alamos County tax production of plutonium pits died quietly in the New Mexico legislature after a committee of jurisdiction declined to take up the measure. On Wednesday, with only one more scheduled day in the state’s legislative session, the bill was still waiting for action […]

A New Mexico legislative committee this month passed a bill to stop the prime contractor of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from claiming state tax credits for making nuclear-weapon cores. If signed into law the bill would go into effect on July 1 and exclude Los Alamos National Laboratory prime contractor Triad National Security from […]

Police in Bellevue, Wash., last month got an alarming call from an Air Force Museum in Ohio, alerting them that a town resident had offered to donate a pre-Vietnam unguided nuclear rocket.  The department’s bomb squad responded to find the remains of an AIR-2 Genie Rocket, produced until 1962. The unguided air-to-air rocket would have […]

Los Alamos glovebox fire sprinklers could cause criticality, safety watchdog says Los Alamos National Laboratory is trying to prevent accidental criticalities caused when fires inside gloveboxes trigger a building’s sprinkler system, which might allow water to touch fissile material, according to a federal safety watchdog. In a report dated Jan. 19, the National Nuclear Security […]

The Department of Energy is looking at two incidents of skin contamination at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility in New Mexico during January, according to a recent report from a federal safety agency. In one the likely source was a contaminated phone in a laboratory room, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory is trying to prevent accidental criticalities caused when fires inside gloveboxes trigger a building’s sprinkler system, which might allow water to touch fissile material, according to a federal safety watchdog. In a report dated Jan. 19, the National Nuclear Security Administration said it provided formal comments on a plan to limit […]

The Department of Energy is looking at two incidents of skin contamination at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility in New Mexico during January, according to a recent report from a federal safety agency. In one the likely source was a contaminated phone in a laboratory room, according to the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board […]

WASHINGTON — A three-year slip for a new x-ray imager will not necessarily result in a bigger, more massive W93 nuclear warhead, senior officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory said here Thursday. That was a slight change in tune compared with an appraisal one of these people made last year. For the last three years, […]

WASHINGTON — A tech-industry downturn and a federal permission to boost worker compensation helped with hiring at U.S. nuclear-weapons labs, but hanging on to recruits is still tough, the lab directors said here Wednesday. “We’re actually in quite a good place right now,” Kimberly Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, […]

WASHINGTON — The Los Alamos National Laboratory’s plan to produce 30 nuclear weapon cores annually by 2028 satisfies current military needs, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said here Friday. That date, given earlier in the summit by the head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, “meets my needs in that regard for W87-1” Gen. […]

While Triad National Security’s program appears adequate to detect potentially combustible chemicals in transuranic waste from National Nuclear Security Administration work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a safety board wants to see improvement. That is the crux of a Jan. 19 Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) letter to Secretary of Energy  Jennifer […]

WASHINGTON — A three-year slip for a new x-ray imager will not necessarily result in a bigger, more massive W93 nuclear warhead, senior officials from Los Alamos National Laboratory said here Thursday. That was a slight change in tune compared with an appraisal one of these people made last year. For the last three years, […]

WASHINGTON — A tech-industry downturn and a federal permission to boost worker compensation helped with hiring at U.S. nuclear-weapons labs, but hanging on to recruits is still tough, the lab directors said here Wednesday. “We’re actually in quite a good place right now,” Kimberly Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, […]

WASHINGTON — The Los Alamos National Laboratory should be able to produce 30 nuclear weapon cores annually by 2028, the lab’s director said here Wednesday. “At the moment the plan we’re working to is 2028,” Thomas Mason, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, told the Exchange Monitor here on the sidelines of the Monitor’s […]

As the annual Academy Awards prepares to honor a movie on the life of physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) hopes people who run the Hollywood movie business might also focus some attention on radiation victims from the Manhattan Project’s nuclear testing program. “The Oppenheimer film tells a compelling story of these test programs,” […]

About two years after it released a draft of the document, the National Nuclear Security Administration published a final environmental review of its plant to dispose of dozens of tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium. The nuclear weapons agency published its final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program (SPDP) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register on […]

The Department of Energy is taking applications until Feb. 12 for a new nuclear cleanup field office manager to replace Michael Mikolanis at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to a recent online notice. Mikolanis is leaving by March to become the top DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) executive at the […]

About a year after it released a draft of the document, the National Nuclear Security Administration published a final environmental review of its plant to dispose of dozens of tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium. The nuclear weapons agency published its final Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program (SPDP) Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in the Federal Register on […]

The annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit, hosted by the Exchange Monitor, kicks off in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday with more than 60 speakers from the top ranks of the U.S.  nuclear security enterprise.  Expect much discussion of the National Nuclear Security Administration striving to produce at least 80 plutonium pits for use in modernizing nuclear weapons […]

The Department of Energy is taking applications until Feb. 12 for a new nuclear cleanup field office manager to replace Michael Mikolanis at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, according to a recent online notice. Mikolanis is leaving by March to become the top DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) executive at the […]

There were at least six separate contamination incidents at Los Alamos National Laboratory between December and January, according to a series of safety watchdog reports.  Most recently, two incidents occurred within a week in early January in Technical Area 55, according to summaries by the lab. Just before 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 4 an employee […]