National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration said Wednesday it is gearing up to provide another $40 million in cooperative agreements for production projects for the medical isotope molybdenum-99. That would be on top of $100 million pledged in recent years to four projects led by three companies: NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, SHINE Medical Technologies, and General […]

A draft 2019 budget bill up for a vote in the House today would steer the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) away from creating a nuclear warhead that could fly on both Navy and Air Force missiles, and jump-start construction of a new warhead-core factory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. That […]

A leaked report from a nominally independent office within the National Nuclear Security Administration offers a trove of new details about the cost estimate for a plan the agency must sell to Congress in order to start producing nuclear-warhead cores in South Carolina. On Thursday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said he would officially cancel the […]

South Carolina may once again sue the Department of Energy, this time for terminating the Savannah River Site’s MOX project, state Attorney General Alan Wilson hinted in a statement on Monday. This would be South Carolina’s fourth lawsuit since 2016 against the federal government over plutonium disposal at the DOE facility near the city of Aiken. “We have […]

It will cost about $20 billion to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-grade plutonium by burying it in the New Mexico desert, compared with almost $50 billion to convert the material into commercial reactor fuel using an unfinished facility in South Carolina, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told Congress on Thursday. The preliminary life-cycle […]

Lynchburg, Va.-based BWX Technologies has named Joel Duling, currently leading its Nuclear Fuel Services subsidiary, to become president of its Nuclear Operations Groups as of June 22. Duling will succeed Joe Henry, who is retiring. Before joining Tennessee-based Nuclear Fuel Services five years ago as director of operations, Duling served at the Y-12 National Security […]

It will cost up to $4.6 billion to convert an unfinished plutonium-disposal plant in South Carolina into a working factory for nuclear-warhead cores by 2030, a spokesperson for the National Nuclear Security Administration said Friday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency delivered the preliminary cost estimate a day after it announced it wanted to turn […]

The U.S. Department of Energy and South Carolina said Tuesday they probably will not settle their differences about whether the agency owes the state hundreds of millions of dollars for its failure to remove plutonium from the state by 2016. That conclusion was all but foregone, as South Carolina has already submitted a motion for […]

Department of Energy veteran Theodore Garrish has become the agency’s acting general counsel — a position he has held before. Garrish, whose name appeared without announcement in the general counsel spot on a Department of Energy organization chart, was already the agency’s assistant secretary for international affairs. The Senate confirmed him for the post in April. It was not […]

Seeking to cut the time it will spend in court, the Department of Energy last week asked a federal judge to consolidate five lawsuits filed against the agency by the prime contractor on a long-delayed plutonium-disposal plant in South Carolina. CB&I AREVA MOX Services first sued the Department of Energy (DOE) in the U.S. Court […]

The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee approved a roughly $36-billion Department of Energy budget bill Monday, which heads to the full committee for a markup Wednesday, May 16. The Department of Energy (DOE) would receive a 5-percent budget raise over all from 2018, if the bill the House Appropriations energy and water development […]

The Department of Energy said Thursday it will produce nuclear-warhead cores for the ongoing 30-year, $1 trillion modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal at two sites instead of one, and will convert a major nonproliferation facility into a weapons plant to do it. The Department of Defense wants DOE to make 80 fissile “plutonium pits” […]

The man who would lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons branch, better than a $10-billion-a-year portfolio that includes the some of nation’s most sensitive and secret defense work, drew barely any attention Thursday in a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing. The exception was Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who warned Charles Verdon that if […]

An Energy Department contractor at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina is seeking expressions of interest from subcontractors potentially interested in conducting concrete testing at Saltstone Disposal Unit (SDU) 7. Savannah River Remediation said in a May 8 post on a federal contracting website it is seeking responses by June 15. The AECOM-led […]

After a marathon of amendments and votes that began Tuesday morning and ended Wednesday morning, the House Armed Services Committee defeated a doomed-to-fail Democratic attempt to prevent the National Nuclear Security Administration from starting work on a new low-yield nuclear warhead in fiscal year 2019. Ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who called the low-yield […]

The U.S. Department of Energy and South Carolina said Tuesday they probably will not settle their differences about whether the agency owes the state hundreds of millions of dollars for its failure to remove plutonium from the state by 2016. That conclusion was all but foregone, as South Carolina has already submitted a motion for […]

Seeking to cut the time it will spend in court, the Department of Energy last week asked a federal judge to consolidate five lawsuits filed against the agency by the prime contractor on a long-delayed plutonium-disposal plant in South Carolina. CB&I AREVA MOX Services first sued the Department of Energy (DOE) in the U.S. Court […]

The Energy Department indicated May 7 it has made another revision to the request for proposals (RFP) package for the Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. This latest amendment concerns the level of experience needed for the contractor installing micropiles” at the site for the mercury […]

The House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee approved a roughly $36-billion Department of Energy budget bill Monday, which heads to the full committee for a markup that had not been scheduled at deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. The Department of Energy (DOE) would receive a 5-percent budget raise over all from 2018, if […]

Congressional panels will mark up Department of Energy budget legislation this week, beginning with the House’s first draft of the agency’s 2019 budget Monday evening. The House Appropriations Energy and Water development subcommittee is scheduled to mark up its version of the agency’s 2019 budget Monday at 5:30 p.m. in Washington. Then, on Wednesday, the […]

Charles Verdon will get his confirmation hearing in the Senate Thursday morning, about two-and-a-half months after the White House nominated the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory hand to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s $10-plus-billion-a-year nuclear weapons branch. The White House nominated Verdon Feb. 27 and the Senate Armed Services Committee is set to consider the […]

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee is replacing an inner reflector plug at its neutron source with a new one, filled with about 6 metric tons of heavy water purchased from Iran. The Energy Department’s lab Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) produces neutrons for experiments to support scientific disciplines including physics, chemistry, materials science, and […]

Sentencing has been scheduled for the two men who pleaded guilty to stealing $4.4 million from the federal government while conducting work for the MOX project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Aaron Vennefron and Phillip Thompson will both be sentenced on May 24 by Judge J. Michelle Childs, of […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory called a two-day time out on some of its plutonium work late last month after personnel put fissile material in the wrong containers, according to a report released April 27 by an independent federal nuclear-safety watchdog. Both mishaps took place in March at the New Mexico lab’s Plutonium Facility. During […]

A merger of McDermott International and CB&I, the majority partner in the contractor building a plutonium-conversion plant for the Department of Energy, is expected to close May 10 after shareholders for both companies approved the combination. That is according to a joint press release Wednesday from the companies. McDermott shareholders would end up owning 53 […]

A federal judge has decided to let the Department of Energy and a contractor argue in court about whether the agency was allowed to claw back some $20 million in fees on a long-overdue, over-budget plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina. That is according to an April 27 order by U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge […]

A federal judge in New Mexico last week sentenced a former Sandia National Laboratories contractor to three years in prison for fraudulently steering procurement money to a moving company she owned. U.S. District Judge M. Christina Armijo also ordered Carla Sena, the convicted 56 year-old former contractor from Santa Rosa, N.M., to pay back $643,000 […]

The governor of South Carolina this week promised a court challenge if the Department of Energy cancels the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) under construction in his state, or turns the planned plutonium-disposal plant into a new weapons facility. The sprawling facility, billions over budget and years behind schedule, is being built to turn […]

Newport News Nuclear BWXT-Los Alamos (N3B) became the new contractor in charge of legacy nuclear cleanup at the Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico effective Monday morning. The contractor just finished a 90-day transition that has included hiring staff, inspecting cleanup areas and setting up new policy and business procedures, the […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Energy will release a detailed cost estimate for its plan to bury 34 metric tons of diluted weapon-usable plutonium in the New Mexico desert around June, an agency official said here Wednesday. “June-ish,” Virginia Kay, deputy director of the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Office of Material Disposition, told […]