Los Alamos National Laboratory

The Government Accountability Office took a victory lap for a series of investigations it made into the now-cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., saying the move saved some $13 billion. “Construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility [MFFF], initially estimated to cost about $4.8 billion, was […]

The Government Accountability Office took a victory lap for a series of investigations it made into the now-cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., saying the move saved some $13 billion. The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility was initially forecast to cost $4.8 billion, but “[i]n response to […]

The state of New Mexico last week was noncommittal about when it might approve a pair of permits the Los Alamos National Laboratory needs to vent tritium gas into the atmosphere. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the venting, but the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) had not as of Thursday decided when it […]

Seven more workers informed management at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state on Saturday they have tested positive for COVID-19. The latest confirmed coronavirus infections were reported in a Saturday afternoon post on Hanford’s emergency operations website, which is run by site services contractor Mission Support Alliance. That brings the confirmed total […]

Andrea Romero (D), once forced out as chief of a group to support communities around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, easily won a second term Tuesday in the New Mexico legislature. Romero won 77% of the vote to win re-election in District 46 of the state House of Representatives, according to figures […]

Should former Vice President Joe Biden (D) ultimately prevail over President Donald Trump (R) in the presidential race, several women — including a Republican — and a black man could be shortlisted as candidates for Biden’s first secretary of energy, a source with experience in both government and industry said this week. As of Friday […]

As Friday deadline approached for Weapons Complex Monitor, the Associated Press had not declared a winner in the presidential election between President Donald Trump (R) and the former vice president, Joe Biden (D).  Biden was leading in electoral votes. Whomever is declared president-elect an intense legal challenge is expected, according to media outlets. While a […]

Andrea Romero (D), once forced out as chief of a group to support communities around the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, easily won a second term Tuesday in the New Mexico legislature. Romero won 77% of the vote to win re-election in District 46 of the state House of Representatives, according to figures […]

At deadline Friday, winter weather had finally blown over New Mexico and Texas after an early-week barrage that gave all the nuclear-weapons sites in those states at one snow day. Non-essential dayshift employees at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, were most affected by an early winter storm that crusted the panhandle counties of Potter […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory wrapped up equipment installation at the site’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility 10 months ahead of schedule, the weapons lab said this week in press release. This now-completed phase, officially, Plutonium Facility Equipment Installation-Phase 1, is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMMR) project. […]

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 […]

The barrage of winter weather in the Western U.S. closed down some nuclear weapons sites again on Tuesday, with the Pantex plant bracing for a third straight snow day for non-essential workers. Pantex canned the Wednesday day shift on account of snowy and icy conditions after doing the same on Monday and Tuesday, according to […]

Amid worsening winter weather in the western U.S., the Los Alamos National Laboratory called for a delayed opening on Tuesday after sending personnel home early on Monday.  Likewise, the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, ordered non-essential workers on two of three shifts to stay home on Tuesday, and told anyone who could telework to do […]

The Department of Energy’s underground disposal site for defense-related transuranic waste is succumbing to mission creep, an agency critic told the New Mexico Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee last week. The mission at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad “is not for defense high-level waste, commercial spent nuclear fuel, or any commercial […]

Later this year, the National Nuclear Security Administration will begin a formal review of its program to dispose of the 34 metric tons of plutonium once slated to be recycled into commercial reactor fuel, an agency official said. It was unclear whether the agency would heed the advice of the National Academies of Sciences and […]

The prime for the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico has signed a construction subcontractor to keep a major ventilation project going while a new provider is selected. Nuclear Waste Partnership said Thursday it has awarded a $3-million subcontract to Kiewit US Contractors Co. to support construction of the Safety Significant […]

Shipments to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico are down more than 40% for both the first nine months of 2020, and the just-completed 2020 fiscal year, based on figures from the site’s public database. During the first nine months of pandemic-affected 2020, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) received […]

Glovebox component vendor Central Research Laboratories, Red Wing, Minn., again popped up in connection with a glovebox breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility, this time after a close call involving a plutonium machining operator.  On Sept. 23, an “ergonomic” glovebox glove assembly provided by Central Research Laboratories unexpectedly disconnected from the […]

Nuclear cleanup contractors for the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management received $426-million during fiscal 2020 to help cushion the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for employees not able to report to work. That’s according to a spokesperson for the agency’s Office of Environmental Management (EM). The figure represents reimbursements EM paid to […]

Officials at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory are looking into Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board concerns that the New Mexico site should do more to minimize the risk of a transuranic waste drum explosion. The board, in a letter dated Sept. 24, found that safety bases for both DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

Glovebox component vendor Central Research Laboratories, Red Wing, Minn., again popped up in connection with a glovebox breach at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility, this time after a close call involving a plutonium machining operator.  On Sept. 23, an “ergonomic” glovebox glove assembly provided by Central Research Laboratories unexpectedly disconnected from the […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration should hold a COVID-19-safe virtual meeting to brief New Mexico residents about a planned venting of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, members of the state’s congressional delegation said Tuesday in a letter to the lab’s local fed. “[W]e strongly urge you to hold an open public information meeting […]

As of mid-week, there had been a total of 175 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Hanford Site Manager Brian Vance said Wednesday during a webcast advisory board meeting. Vance, the Hanford site manager, provided the number in response to a question from a member of the […]

Unhappy with the proposals it has seen to date from the Department of Energy, the New Mexico Environment Department is moving toward dispute resolution to bridge differences over cleanup milestones at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The state is invoking dispute resolution over remediation milestones for 2021 under the parties’ 2016 compliance order on consent. […]

Unhappy with the proposals it has seen to date from the Department of Energy, the New Mexico Environment Department is moving toward dispute resolution to bridge differences over cleanup milestones at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The state is invoking dispute resolution over remediation milestones for 2021 under the parties’ 2016 compliance order on consent. […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration should hold a COVID-19-safe virtual meeting to brief New Mexico residents about a planned venting of tritium from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, members of the state’s congressional delegation said Tuesday in a letter to the lab’s local fed. “[W]e strongly urge you to hold an open public information meeting […]

For the first time in 15 years, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is making shipments of transuranic waste to the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, a lab spokesman said this week. Three shipments left Lawrence Livermore for WIPP during the week of Sept. 21, one week after a […]

There are 74 active cases of COVID-19 currently within the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s nuclear cleanup sites, an agency spokesperson said late Thursday. That is slightly up from the 70 active cases the prior week across the 16 former Cold War and Manhattan Project sites overseen by the office, but still less […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory confirmed a pair of COVID-19 cases among its workforce last week, during which the lab performed nearly 400 tests for the viral disease, a spokesperson said late Friday. That brings the total number of confirmed cases at the lab since the start of the outbreak to 59, the spokesperson for […]

Most Americans don’t like the way 2020 is playing out, at least if social media posts are any guide, and the first eight months of the year have not gone well for productivity at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. There have been 121 shipments from Jan. 1 through Aug. […]