National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The internal emergency response organization at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, responded Tuesday to what the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) described as a “security event" involving an ultimately harmless parked car. “Just before noon on October 23, a routine inspection at Pantex identified a potential concern with a vehicle in the John C. […]

The Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is expected to make four more shipments of transuranic waste  to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in the near term, after having just revived shipments from LANL’s Area G. A weekly report dated Sept. 28 from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) indicated […]

Four universities will split more than $40 million in grant funding under a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) program designed to bolster fundamental science applicable to nuclear weapons and encourage students to come to work in the nuclear security enterprise. This brings the total number of universities receiving funding through the NNSA Stewardship Science Academic Alliances […]

A September review by the Department of Energy compounded the agency’s alleged transgressions of federal environmental law stemming from a 2016 design change to a next-generation uranium plant under construction at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a band of environmental groups said this week in an amended federal lawsuit. The supplemental analysis DOE’s semiautonomous […]

A longtime lobbyist for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility was laid off today as the Department of Energy closes in on its goal of ending the project. Veteran government-affairs hand Stephen Marlo acknowledged his termination by APTIM in a telephone interview with Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. The Woodlands, Texas, company was created by a private equity […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week postponed a confirmation hearing for the Donald Trump administration’s nominee to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). William Bookless, a senior physicist form the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, was scheduled to testify before the panel Tuesday, but “this hearing has been postponed,” the committee […]

A delegation of high-profile South Carolina politicians met Thursday with President Donald Trump at the White House to make a last-minute plea to save an embattled plutonium-disposal plant in the Palmetto State — a facility the Department of Energy wants to convert into a weapon factory. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), along with Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), […]

A September review by the Department of Energy compounded the agency’s alleged transgressions of federal environmental law stemming from a 2016 design change to a next-generation uranium plant under construction at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee, a band of environmental groups said this week in an amended federal lawsuit. The supplemental analysis DOE’s semiautonomous […]

Four universities will split more than $40 million in grant funding under a National Nuclear Security Administration program designed to bolster fundamental science applicable to nuclear weapons, and encourage students to come to work in the nuclear security enterprise, the agency announced Monday. The four universities funded under the recently announced round of the National […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week cancelled a scheduled nomination hearing for the man the Donald Trump administration’s nominated to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). William Bookless, a senior physicist form the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California was scheduled to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday, but […]

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) expects to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday to plead a case for reversing the White House’s Oct. 10 decision to terminate the Savannah River Site’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, the palmetto state chief said Monday. The exact timing of the meeting could change due to how sudden […]

Days after the Department of Energy said it was cancelling MOX Services’ contract to build the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) vowed to appeal the decision directly to the White House. The local Aiken Standard reported Graham’s comments Saturday  As first reported Friday by Weapons Complex Morning Briefing’s affiliate publication Nuclear Security […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move late on Oct. 5 in a post […]

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina sustained minor impacts from Hurricane Michael late Thursday and early Friday, during a 24-hour workforce reduction activated as the storm approached. Effects included minimal damage to some administrative buildings at the 310-square-mile Department of Energy facility near the city of Aiken, along with some loss of power and […]

The secretary of energy and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday expressed condolences for the death of an agency security employee who helped move special nuclear material across the country. Kristopher Youngberg, 41, died after a passenger van he was riding in last week along with four other Department of Energy […]

Companies interested in building custom road equipment to transport tritium-bearing rods to the Savannah River Site from a nuclear reactor in Tennessee got an extra month-and-a-half, until Nov. 9, to file their bids, the prime contractor for the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said Tuesday. Battelle, which runs the Washington state lab for […]

Barriers to producing plutonium nuclear weapon cores in South Carolina remain, but the way is wide open in New Mexico, where the National Nuclear Security Administration has entered the peak spending years of upgrades aimed at producing a war-usable “pit” by fiscal 2024.  The Department of Energy’s semiautonomous stockpile steward is entering peak construction years on […]

Charles Verdon, a longtime manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, on Tuesday officially started his new job leading the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $11-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. Verdon was sworn in as NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs by Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, according to an agency press release. […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move late on Oct. 5 in a post […]

The managing contractor for the Nevada National Security Site, Mission Support and Test Services (MSTS), envisions significant subcontracting opportunities for construction and consulting services in the near future, a senior manager said recently. The venture comprised of Honeywell International, Jacobs, and Stoller Newport News Nuclear (SN3) took over management of the site for the Department […]

The secretary of energy and the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration on Wednesday expressed condolences for the death of an agency security employee who helped move special nuclear material across the country. Kristopher Youngberg, 41, died after a passenger van he was riding in last week along with four other Department of Energy […]

A federal appeals court on Tuesday effectively cleared the Department of Energy to cancel construction of a controversial plutonium disposal plant under construction in South Carolina. The decision, which followed oral arguments before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in late September, could result in the eventual loss of some 2,000 jobs at MOX […]

Charles Verdon, a longtime manager at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, on Tuesday officially started his new job leading the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) $11-billion-a-year nuclear weapons portfolio. Verdon was sworn in as NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs by Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, according to an agency press release. […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled an Oct. 16 confirmation hearing fro William Bookless, the Donald Trump administration’s nominee to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The hearing is a central step to installing Bookless as principal deputy administrator at the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory senior physicist was nominated in August. […]

The Department of Energy hosted a three-day meeting in South Carolina last week to talk about plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site, the agency’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said. The NNSA Office of Defense Programs led a what an agency spokesperson called “a plutonium pit production workshop” from Oct 2-4.“Workshop attendees […]

The Department of Energy has paused rollout of a solicitation for a 10-year, $14-billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site for most of the next decade, pending an internal review that could radically reshape the nuclear-weapon mission at the South Carolina facility. The agency announced the move around 8 p.m. Friday ahead of the […]

The White House this week officially nominated Bruce Hamilton to take over as the full-time chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: an independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog he has led on an acting basis since February. The Donald Trump administration nominated Hamilton with around a month of legislative days left on the Senate’s […]

Days after asking as much in oral arguments, the Department of Energy this week again asked a federal appeals court to let it shut down the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. In early June, as part of a lawsuit filed by the state of South […]

A metric ton of plutonium once slated to be de-weaponized forever would instead be used to help the Department of Energy manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores next decade, the agency confirmed this week. Earlier this year, the Department of Energy and its semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) decided that “a fraction of the plutonium that’s […]

A metric ton of plutonium once slated to be de-weaponized forever would instead be used to help the Department of Energy manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores some time in the next decade, the agency confirmed Monday. The fissile material is part of a large tranche declared surplus to defense needs by the Bill Clinton administration in […]