National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has demanded the U.S. Supreme Court consider the case of South Carolina and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), which the state’s senior senator says has turned the Savannah River Site into a permanent plutonium dumping ground. Graham made his argument in an amicus curiae brief filed with the court on July […]

The Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SNRS) will continue managing the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina for up to three more years, the agency announced Thursday. The contract extension includes a 14-month base worth $1.5 billion, plus a pair of one-year options, the value of which DOE did not disclose. That […]

NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes said this week it has finished building a facility for processing the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99). The 20,000-square-foot plant in the company’s home city of Beloit, Wis., will eventually be used to dissolve irradiated molybdenum-99 targets to fill NorthStar’s Mo-99 source vessels. It is expected to more than double NorthStar’s current output […]

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Wednesday it has removed a breached cesium-137 source from a University of Washington medical research building in Seattle, clearing the way to begin remediation of the facility following its May 3 contamination.  The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency on Tuesday moved the cesium-137 source to the Pacific […]

The U.S. Air Force said Tuesday it plans to award a contract sometime between July and September 2020 for production of the United States’ next nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile. The service plans to buy more than 600 Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) missiles, about 400 of which will go into silos starting around 2028 to replace […]

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has demanded the U.S. Supreme Court consider the case of South Carolina and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), which the state’s senior senator says has turned the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., into a permanent plutonium dumping ground. Graham made his argument in an amicus curiae brief filed […]

A federal appeals court decided last week it does not need to hear oral arguments about whether the U.S. government violated environmental law when it sent half a metric ton of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada in 2018. In what could be a sign that judges will rule swiftly on Nevada’s appeal of a lower […]

The Department of Energy is scheduled next week to send a cesium-137 source that contaminated a University of Washington building in May to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for “forensic analysis,” an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Until then, the damaged irradiator’s cesium-137 source remains in the Research and Training Building near the university’s Harborview […]

The Department of Energy acknowledged Wednesday that for six years it sent nuclear weapons waste to the Nevada National Security Site in violation of its waste acceptance criteria. The agency confirmed the information the same day Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) made it public in a press release. Senior DOE officials including Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of the […]

The Z Pulsed Power Facility at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., was back online this week after a serious accident in June knocked the facility out of commission for three weeks, a senior laboratory employee said this week. The June 17 accident, which shook Sandia’s high-energy density physics lab longer and harder than […]

The House of Representatives on Friday passed its 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), after bipartisan blocks of lawmakers rejected further restrictions to the W80-4 nuclear warhead life-extension program and development of next-generation intercontinental ballistic missiles. On a more partisan basis, lawmakers voted 201-221 against an amendment from Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) that would have […]

Preparations began this week for repairing the roof on the H Canyon facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, with the physical repairs due to start later this summer. In January, the Energy Department announced plans to spend an estimated $1 million from the SRS fiscal 2019 maintenance and […]

The Z Pulsed Power Facility at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., was slated to come back online Wednesday after a serious accident in June knocked the facility out of commission for three weeks, a senior laboratory employee said this week. The June 17 accident, which shook Sandia’s high-energy density physics lab longer and […]

The Department of Energy acknowledged Wednesday that for six years it sent nuclear weapons waste to the Nevada National Security Site in violation of its waste acceptance criteria. The agency confirmed the information the same day Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) made it public in a press release. Senior DOE officials including Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of […]

As expected, Northrop Grumman on Tuesday said that its board has elected Kathy Warden as its chairman effective Aug. 1, adding to her current duties of president and CEO of the $30 billion defense company. Warden succeeds Wes Bush, who has been the company’s chairman since July 2011. Bush will resign from the board effective July […]

The Department of Energy is scheduled next week to send a cesium-137 source that contaminated a University of Washington building in May to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for “forensic analysis,” an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. Until then, the damaged irradiator’s cesium-137 source remains in the Research and Training Building near the university’s Harborview […]

A federal appeals court decided last week it does not need to hear oral arguments about whether the U.S. government violated environmental law when it sent half a metric ton of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada in 2018. In what could be a sign that judges will rule swiftly on Nevada’s appeal of a lower […]

The site operations contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex is finishing decontamination in Building 9995 after a furnace there blew open and spewed uranium in late May. The muffle furnace in Y-12’s Analytical Chemistry Facility partially exploded after an unexpected reaction, contaminating nearby space and equipment, but neither injuring nor contaminating any personnel, a spokesperson […]

BWX Technologies has finished a uranium conversion contract for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency confirmed this week. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency awarded the roughly $30-million contract in 2011 and extended it through June 30, 2019, at no cost. The NNSA wanted BWX Technologies to hold on to some converted […]

After settlement talks collapsed, a federal judge this week cleared the way for a long-awaited decision in a $200-million lawsuit between South Carolina and the Department of Energy over the federal government’s failure to remove plutonium from the state. The Energy Department and the state had for more than a year tried to settle the […]

BWX Technologies has finished a uranium conversion contract for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency confirmed this week. The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency awarded the roughly $30-million contract in 2011 and extended it through June 30, 2019, at no cost. The NNSA wanted BWX Technologies to hold on to some converted […]

The door to a muffle furnace at the Y-12 National Security Complex’s Analytical Chemistry Facility “blew open” after a “violent reaction” in May, according to a Friday report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). A chemist working near the muffle furnace in Y-12’s Building 9995 was not harmed when the equipment ejected glass vials […]

South Carolina and the Department of Energy said last week they had failed to settle a $200-million lawsuit over the federal government’s failure to begin removing weapon-usable plutonium from the state by Jan. 1, 2016. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims case had been on hold for about a year, during which DOE made only […]

The legacy nuclear cleanup contractor for the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico this week canceled the procurement for removal of concrete slabs and related work in Technical Area 21. In an update to its April contracting notice, Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) said Monday it was terminating the procurement […]

A federal judge this week stayed the almost 3-year old lawsuit filed by MOX Services against the National Nuclear Security Administration after the parties announced they were close to settling the $200-million-plus case over a now-terminated plutonium conversion plant in South Carolina. “After mediation, the parties have come to an agreement in principle on proposed […]

The prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex continued to grapple with a fix for a hydrogen fluoride system until earlier this month — well after an April leak that prompted an evacuation of the agency’s main uranium processing building. The system in Building 9212 “returned to operation on Monday, […]

Doug Fremont is the new chief of staff for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an agency spokesperson said Monday. He succeeds William “Ike” White, who left to work at the Department of Energy’s Cold War nuclear-weapon cleanup program. Fremont is the former security chief for the semiautonomous DOE nuclear-weapons agency. He was removed from […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) intends to award BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services a sole-source contract to purify highly enriched uranium and convert it into metal for nuclear weapons programs. The semiautonomous nuclear-weapons steward needs Nuclear Fuel Services to step in around 2023, when the civilian agency plans to shut down existing uranium purification […]

The Department of Energy can annually produce 80 nuclear weapon cores in two states without beginning an all-new environmental review of the full program, according to an already-contested review of the issue released on Wednesday. Instead, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) concluded that the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) requires the agency only […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it intends to award BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services a sole-source contract to purify highly enriched uranium and convert it into metal for nuclear weapons programs. The NNSA will need Nuclear Fuel Services to step in around 2023, when the semiautononmous Department of Energy agency plans […]