National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The Energy Department on Wednesday published a long-awaited environmental review that paves the way for the agency to accept more than 450 casks of spent nuclear fuel from Germany for processing and storage at the agency’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. The spent fuel contains U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium, which was shipped to Germany […]

Incoming Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director Terry Wallace is planning a wave of personnel changes, including elevating an associate director to the lab’s No. 4 post, a spokesperson said Monday. Carolyn Zerkle will be promoted to executive director at LANL effective Jan. 1. The executive director “leads institutional initiatives and provides oversight for Lab […]

At least where it concerns maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal under the care of the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the National Security Strategy that President Donald Trump released Monday does not depart radically from the nuclear modernization plan set in place by his predecessor. The United States must sustain “a nuclear force […]

Centerra has won 96 percent of its potential fee award from the Department of Energy for providing a security force to protect the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. In particular, DOE in a new award-fee scorecard praised Centerra-Savannah River Site for establishing and testing an “active shooter response plan.” Centerra was also cited for […]

Having just completed its $3.25 billion buyout of CH2M, Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering released new information Monday about its business going forward as a $15 billion engineering and infrastructure heavyweight. “Today, we are celebrating the creation of a new Jacobs,” Chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou said in a news release. In the release, Jacobs praised CH2M’s […]

One of the parent companies of the prime contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility said Monday it will be acquired by Houston-based McDermott International in a $6-billion all-stock deal slated to close in the second quarter of 2018. At the close of the transaction CB&I, the Woodlands, […]

A recently leaked study that claims it would be cheaper to manufacture nuclear-weapon cores in South Carolina than New Mexico is full of holes, and an internal National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) document proves it, U.S. lawmakers from the Land of Enchantment wrote in a Monday letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry. In a so-called […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration wants to ship some 3 pounds of weapon-grade uranium abroad for eventual conversion into medical isotopes in four European countries, according to a license application the semiautonomous Energy Department stockpile agency filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week. The unalloyed metal covered by the application is a roughly 93-percent […]

Privately operated Bannister Transformation and Development has taken deed to an old nuclear-weapon support facility in Kansas City, Mo., the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) confirmed Friday. The semiautonomous Department of Energy stockpile steward transferred ownership of more than 200 acres of the Bannister Federal Complex in November, according to an NNSA press release. “We […]

Navarro Research and Engineering earned more than 97 percent of its total potential fiscal 2017 award fee from the Department of Energy Nevada Environmental Program Services (EPS) contract. Navarro garnered $835,975 of a potential $857,037 for the period from Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017, for work at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). […]

Bechtel National is assigning a new project director for the Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) it is building at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state as it moves toward a new phase of work, the partial startup of waste treatment as soon as 2022. Peggy McCullough, the contractor’s current WTP project director, told plant […]

A longtime advocate for the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has again been named chairman of the SRS Community Reuse Organization, a nongovernmental group that works with local stakeholders to benefit the site and local economy.    David Jameson’s two-year term will begin Jan. 1. He previously chaired the SRSCRO from 2010-2011.    As […]

President Donald Trump this week signed the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which makes it harder to move plutonium pit production out of New Mexico, calls for a competition to design a new nuclear warhead for ballistic missiles, and authorizes Congress to keep funding a controversial plutonium-conversion facility. Trump inked the bill Tuesday, nearly […]

The House Appropriations Committee unveiled a peculiar budget bill this week that would provide permanent 2018 appropriations for the Pentagon, but keep other agencies including the Department of Energy funded at 2017 levels through Jan. 19. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) introduced the bill Wednesday. The Department of Energy (DOE), like the rest […]

The deadline to tender bids to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory came and went this week without any prospective offerors besides major universities identifying themselves. Known to be in the hunt are the University of California, the University of Texas, and Texas A&M University. The publicly funded universities cannot hide their interest in the […]

In fulfillment of a long-circulating rumor, the Donald Trump administration announced it will nominate former National Security Council and Department of Energy staffer Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to run U.S. nuclear warhead programs as undersecretary for nuclear security and head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed […]

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Enterprise Assessments said it will investigate an incident in a Los Alamos National Lab facility that resulted in a “near miss to a fatality.” The DOE watchdog office decided to investigate lab prime contractor Los Alamos National Security (LANS) following a September incident in which “a LANS worker […]

The Department of Energy on Friday made official a long-rumored bureaucratic reorganization that puts the agency’s Cold War nuclear-cleanup programs under new management but leaves the quasi-independent National Nuclear Security Administration essentially unchanged. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) roughly $6.5-million-a-year Office of Environmental Management (EM), steward of environmental remediation of Cold War nuclear weapons sites […]

The House Appropriations Committee this week unveiled a peculiar budget bill that would provide full-year fiscal 2018 appropriations for the Pentagon, but keep other federal agencies including the Department of Energy funded at prior-year levels through Jan. 19. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) introduced the bill Wednesday. The Department of Energy (DOE), like […]

CH2M shareholders voted Wednesday to approve the deal that will make the Colorado-based company a wholly owned subsidiary of Dallas-based Jacobs Engineering. The preliminary results of the special meeting of CH2M shareholders show more than 95 percent approval for the merger, the two companies said in a joint press release. The vote should clear the […]

In fulfillment of a long-circulating rumor, the Donald Trump administration announced it will nominate former National Security Council and Department of Energy staffer Lisa Gordon-Hagerty to run U.S. nuclear warhead programs as undersecretary for nuclear security and head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). If approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee and confirmed […]

Navarro Research and Engineering earned more than 97 percent of its total potential award fee for its work on the Department of Energy’s Nevada Environmental Program Services (EPS) contract in fiscal 2017. Navarro garnered $835,975 of a potential $857,037 for the period from Oct. 1, 2016, through Sept. 30, 2017, at the Nevada National Security […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments will investigate an incident in a Los Alamos National Lab facility that resulted in a “near miss to a fatality,” the watchdog office said recently. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Enterprise Assessment office decided to investigate lab prime contractor Los Alamos National Security (LANS) following a September […]

The deadline to tender bids to run the Los Alamos National Laboratory came and went yesterday without any prospective offerors besides major universities identifying themselves. Known to be in the hunt are the University of California, the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. The publicly funded universities cannot hide their interest in the contract, […]

Peggy McCullough, who Bechtel announced Friday would be leaving her post as project director at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state, will be replacing John Howanitz as head of the company’s Nuclear Security, and Operations business based in Virginia. Bechtel said Friday that Brian Reilly, who like McCullough […]

In a sign it still plans to install power lines on a hilltop the local government would rather stay bare, the National Nuclear Security Administration has asked the City of Oak Ridge to pick, by Dec. 13, the color the agency should use to camouflage the line poles. That is according to a late-Friday press […]

A senior industry source said Tuesday he is hearing an increasing amount of “chatter” that the Trump administration might early next year nominate someone to lead the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup office. The source said the talk is circulating among a trusted circle of industry representatives who often share such rumors. Assuming approval by […]

An advisory committee that monitors nuclear waste issues at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina wants the Department of Energy to consider reclassifying retired waste-treatment equipment and waste containers so they are eligible for permanent disposal off-site. On Tuesday, the SRS Citizens Advisory Board’s (CAB) Waste Management Committee voted 10-1 to approve a […]

The Energy Department intends to temporarily extend the current contract for liquid waste management at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina while the Government Accountability Office reviews protests to the newly awarded successor deal. The current contract held by Savannah River Remediation (SRR) – a partnership comprised of AECOM, Bechtel National, CH2M, and BWXT […]

Los Alamos National Security (LANS), the prime contractor for Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, won 84 percent of its potential $10.1 million environmental management award fee in the latest contract scorecard from the Department of Energy. That was good for almost $8.46 million in available fees, DOE said Tuesday. The award fee covers […]