Los Alamos National Laboratory

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has shipped off a bottle of unidentified liquid found around a pothole along a contaminated stretch of a public road for analysis. On July 8, Newport News Nuclear-BWXT Los Alamos (N3B) discovered an intact 500-milliliter amber glass bottle containing […]

The environmental regulator in New Mexico should decide by this fall whether to allow the Department of Energy and its contractor to resume digging a new underground shaft at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant this fall, a state official told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive & Hazardous Materials Committee this week.  The final decision by […]

Despite a shortfall so far compared with the agency’s goals for 2021, disposing of transuranic waste from the Los Alamos National Laboratory continues to be a high priority for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, a federal manager told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive & Hazardous Materials Committee Wednesday. The federal agency had […]

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 […]

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” […]

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 […]

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 Friday. But “I would rather push to a timeline that is […]

Workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state are this week coping with what the National Weather Service described in a Monday bulletin as “dangerous heat.” At deadline, the high for Monday was forecast to reach 115 degrees Fahrenheit with daytime highs expected to remain above 100 degrees F throughout the week. […]

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 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 […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm this week praised the Senate’s Tuesday confirmation of Ali Nouri by voice vote to serve as DOE’s assistant secretary for congressional and Intergovernmental affairs. “As both a scientist and a proven consensus-builder, Ali will bring unparalleled perspective and expertise to his work with Congress and our federal, state, and local […]

Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday morning her agency’s Office of Environmental Management remains on track to commence treatment of low-activity tank waste by the end of 2023 at the Hanford Site in Washington state. The startup of direct feed low activity waste (DFLAW) operations would mark the beginning […]

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 Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, like much of the Southwest, is suffering through an “exceptional drought,” a program manager for the legacy cleanup contractor said during an online meeting Wednesday. The U.S. Drought Monitor, a service run by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal entities, places 60% […]

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 this week. “Shipments from LANL-NNSA [Los Alamos National Laboratory-National Nuclear Security Administration] remain paused,” […]

The Department of Energy expects the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant could receive up to 14 shipments of transuranic material a week in fiscal year 2022, which starts Oct. 1. The DOE Office of Environmental Management rate of shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) should go from 10 per week to 14 per week […]

The Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, like much of the Southwest, is suffering through an “exceptional drought,” a program manager for the legacy cleanup contractor said during an online meeting Wednesday. The U.S. Drought Monitor, a service run by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other federal entities, places 60% […]

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 […]

It will take about a month longer than previously thought for personnel at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to certify that a key component of the site’s planned plutonium pit factory can safely accept the higher volumes fissile material required to support the pit mission. The Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) will be recategorized as a […]

It will take about a month longer than previously thought for personnel at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to certify that a key component of the site’s planned plutonium pit factory can safely accept the higher volumes fissile material required to support the pit mission. The Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) will be recategorized as a […]

A federal district court in New Mexico has set a Nov. 17 settlement conference for federal and state agencies to bridge their differences surrounding a 2016 consent order on cleanup of legacy waste around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar issued a May 18 order scheduling the formal […]

A federal district court in New Mexico has set a Nov. 17 settlement conference for federal and state agencies to bridge their differences surrounding a 2016 consent order on cleanup of legacy waste around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Robbenhaar issued a May 18 order scheduling the formal […]

The Department of Energy spending request put forward Friday by the Joe Biden administration for fiscal 2022 would increase funding for environmental cleanup of past weapons work at several National Nuclear Security Administration sites. The DOE Office of Environmental Management budget for physical cleanup of this legacy contamination would rise by about a third, to […]

A planned pit factory to be built at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., might take five years longer than the National Nuclear Security Administration wanted to produce its full load of war-ready nuclear weapon cores, the Joe Biden administration’s nominee to lead the agency said Thursday. A slip at Savannah River, one of […]

Los Alamos National Laboratory has hired enough criticality safety personnel to support planned manufacturing of nuclear-weapon cores at the New Mexico laboratory, but staff churn among these crucial workers is more common than the lab believes, a new DOE review said. Lab management and operations contractor Triad National Security “has adequately managed the training and […]

A regional group to promote communities around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has decided to close up shop. “We are looking toward officially dissolving by June 30,” Darien Fernandez, the Taos Town Council member and chair of the Regional Coalition  of LANL [Los Alamos National Laboratory] Communities, said by […]

The Department of Energy has named Brian Stickney deputy manager and chief operating officer for the Richland Operations Office at the Hanford Site in Washington state effective this week. Stickney had been acting as deputy manager since October following the retirement of Joe Franco, Hanford’s site manager Brian Vance announced in a May 19 email […]

A regional group to promote communities around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has decided to close up shop. “We are looking toward officially dissolving by June 30,” Darien Fernandez, the Taos Town Council member and chair of the Regional Coalition  of LANL [Los Alamos National Laboratory] Communities, said by […]

The legacy cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico now has a public website about its efforts to remediate contamination along a public road in Los Alamos County. Radioactive contamination was discovered in February 2020 within a 28-acre parcel of land along DP Road that DOE had already […]