National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

In a paperwork milestone that marks another coffin nail for the canceled project, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday terminated MOX Services’ license to build the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. A 1998 federal law gave the industry regulator responsibility for authorizing construction of the MFFF, […]

The Department of Energy is changing the rules for its agency-wide Employee Concerns Program, removing a mandate that employees be allowed to have someone other than their immediate supervisor inspect their claims, and aiming to resolve concerns quickly. The Employee Concerns Program is a sort of whistleblower channel for agency and contractor employees. The old DOE […]

The Amarillo Metal Trade Council, a group comprising 10 local unions representing some 1,200 employees at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, has ratified a new five-year labor agreement with plant contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security, labor and management announced on social media. The Metal Trades Council announced the ratification Monday on its Facebook page. Consolidated […]

BWX Technologies expects to finalize some $2 billion in nuclear naval nuclear propulsion contracts in the first quarter of 2019, the Lynchburg, Va., company announced Monday before financial markets opened. BWX Technologies’ Nuclear Operations Group and Nuclear Fuel Services “reached price agreements” on Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program contracts worth a combined $2.1 billion, with options, […]

Updated safety documents for a ventilation tunnel at the Savannah River Site’s H Canyon facility are expected to be approved this summer and implemented in the fall, according to the Department of Energy. The documents should reflect a different approach to how the 310-square-mile site will handle incidents at the facility during an earthquake or […]

The federal government is holding on to more than $600,000 it seized over three years ago from a Savannah River Site subcontractor who is now serving prison time for committing fraud while working at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). In a Jan. 30 filing in the fraud case, Carrie Fisher Sherard, an attorney with […]

A recent local government report shows that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico accounted for a greater share of a shrinking Los Alamos County workforce over the last decade. As of mid-2018, the Department of Energy facility employed more than 65 percent of the county’s total workforce of roughly 16,300. In 2009, the lab […]

Kim Budil started this week in her new job as director of weapons complex and integration at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, making her the point person for the nuclear warhead to be used on a next-generation cruise missile. Monday was Budil’s first day in her new role, a lab spokesperson confirmed Tuesday. […]

The prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Y-12 and Pantex sites spent about $30 million from 2016 to 2018 to create consolidated business information systems it says will save the government nearly $3 billion over the life of a 10-year site management contract, according to the Government Accountability Office. That is less than […]

MOX Services, the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will lay off roughly another 400 people on April 1, according to South Carolina’s quasi-official unemployment services. MOX Services announced the impending layoffs Monday, the same day almost 450 workers were hit by […]

With half a metric ton of plutonium already shipped there over the state’s objections, Nevada on Thursday asked a federal judge to block the Department of Energy from sending any more of the fissile material. In a request for a preliminary injunction filed Thursday, the state asked U.S. District Judge Miranda Du to stop DOE […]

House Democrats on Thursday introduced a bill to ban the low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead the National Nuclear Security Administration recently acknowledged it started producing. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) leads the cadre of Democrats, which includes House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.). The text of the bill, “H.R.1086 – To prohibit the research and […]

A recent local government report shows that the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico accounted for a greater share of a shrinking Los Alamos County workforce over the last decade. As of mid-2018, the Department of Energy facility employed more than 65 percent of the county’s total workforce of roughly 16,300. In 2009, the lab […]

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) on Wednesday became the latest outraged politician to demand answers about the Department of Energy’s secretive shipment of plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) in November. In a heated letter dated Feb. 6, Sisolak told Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Lisa […]

The federal government is holding on to more than $600,000 it seized over three years ago from a Savannah River Site subcontractor who is now serving prison time for committing fraud while working at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). In a Jan. 30 filing in the fraud case, Carrie Fisher Sherard, an attorney with […]

Nevada on Monday appealed a federal judge’s refusal to block a shipment of plutonium into the state, even though the Department of Energy material in question reached its destination late last year. The state filed notice of its appeal in the U.S. District Court for Nevada, which last week denied Nevada a preliminary injunction it […]

Kim Budil started this week in her new job as director of weapons complex and integration at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where her responsibilities will include overseeing the Department of Energy facility’s moderniztion of the nuclear warhead for the Air Force’s next-generation air-launched cruise missile. Monday was Budil’s first day in her […]

MOX Services, the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., will lay off another 369 people on April 1, according to South Carolina’s quasi-official unemployment services. MOX Services announced the impending layoffs Monday, the same day almost 450 workers left the project for […]

The prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Y-12 and Pantex sites spent about $30 million from 2016 to 2018 to create consolidated business information systems it says will save the government nearly $3 billion over the life of a 10-year site management contract, accpording to the Government Accountability Office. That is less than […]

Nevada’s Senate delegation wants unclassified and classified briefings from the Department of Energy about the clandestine shipment last year of half a metric ton of plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) made the request in a Feb. 1 letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. Last week, […]

Roughly another 440 people were scheduled to be laid off today from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., in the second wave of job cuts at the cancelled plutonium-disposal plant. Combined with the first swing of the axe in January, the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) was […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., is expected to receive 330 shipments of transuranic waste over the next 12 months, with some coming from sites that have not shipped material in years. The Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, held a breakfast presentation Monday for New Mexico lawmakers, […]

Roofing repairs at the Savannah River Site’s (SRS) H Canyon processing facility will begin this summer after rainwater dripped through a crack in the roof to the ground floor of the facility. The water became contaminated as it passed through the nuclear materials processing area on its way to the first level of the canyon, Monte […]

With the partial shutdown of the federal government resolved, at least until mid-February, a lawsuit between the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the prime contractor for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) has resumed, according to a court filing this week. The $200-million lawsuit ground to a halt during the 35-day shutdown, […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “before November 2018” moved roughly half a ton of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site from the Savannah River Site, in Aiken, S.C., the agency said Wednesday in a bombshell court filing. The announcement caught Nevada's governor and congressional delegation by surprise, prompting an outpouring of online […]

The incumbent management and operations contractor and the vendor in charge of liquid waste at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina both received at least 90 percent of their potential fee in new performance evaluations. Fluor-led site prime Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) and AECOM-led Savannah River Remediation both received “excellent” overall […]

In an annual pregame tradition as sure as the coin toss, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will again police this year’s Super Bowl for signs of radiological dangers. The NNSA Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measuring System swept the area around Atlanta on Monday and Tuesday to measure background radiation, and is scheduled to do so again Sunday […]

Nekiylo Dawayne Graves, 27, of Iowa, died Monday after contract security forces and a local sheriff’s deputy shot at him following an 8-mile car chase into the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), in Mercury, Nev. In a Wednesday Facebook video, Nye County Sheriff Sharon Wehrly identified Graves as the deceased. She also identified Nye County […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “before November 2018” moved roughly half a ton of weapon-usable plutonium to the Nevada National Security Site from the Savannah River Site, in Aiken, S.C., the agency said Wednesday in a bombshell court filing. The plutonium is part of a 1-metric-ton cache a federal judge in South Carolina ordered […]

The Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M., expects to receive 330 shipments of transuranic waste over the next 12 months, with some coming from sites that have not shipped material in years. The Energy Department and its WIPP contractor, Nuclear Waste Partnership, held a legislative breakfast presentation Monday for New Mexico lawmakers, […]