National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

Despite worries within the nuclear security enterprise of “massive uncertainties” in its delivery date, the Scorpius x-ray imager might actually be ready later this decade, a spokesperson for the Sandia National Laboratories said last week. “The deterministic date…is to have Scorpius operational before the end of calendar 2027, with subcritical experiments to start in calendar […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s drive to make new nuclear-weapon cores has delayed disposal of old ones, according to an agency statement emailed to the Exchange Monitor on Tuesday. Amid the expansion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility and early work on South Carolina’s planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, which combined are supposed […]

In a hearing Thursday, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee lauded a new report that recommends expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal to counter Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons. The testimony of the leaders of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States was “very compelling,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said during […]

Federal appeals judges on Wednesday heard arguments about whether the Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories prime contractor forced out a 25-year scientist and manager by giving him only a day to decide whether to resign or undergo a performance improvement program. Plaintiff Robert Hwang, a Ph. D. formerly at the lab, “was fearful he […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s drive to make new nuclear-weapon cores has delayed disposal of old ones, according to an agency statement emailed to the Exchange Monitor on Tuesday. Amid the expansion of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility and early work on South Carolina’s planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, which combined […]

A Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel will hear arguments Wednesday in San Francisco in an employment discrimination case filed by Robert Hwang against the Department of Energy’s prime contractor for Sandia National Laboratories in California. Hwang is appealing an August 2022 ruling by a U.S. Magistrate judge who rejected the scientist’s contention that […]

Despite worries within the nuclear security enterprise of “massive uncertainties” in its delivery date, the Scorpius x-ray imager might actually be ready later this decade, a spokesperson for the Sandia National Laboratories said last week. “The deterministic date…is to have Scorpius operational before the end of calendar 2027, with subcritical experiments to start in calendar […]

While assembling a nuclear weapon in mid-September, technicians at the Pantex Plant in Texas crossed a pair of color-coded and labeled wires, an error that made it past a quality control inspection, according to a report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  During the week of September 15, Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS, which runs […]

The Department of Energy’s watchdog found no evidence that personnel at the Office of Secure Transport abused their administrative leave in a recent investigation.  The DoE Inspector General received allegations in March that Office of Secure Transport (OST) – the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) internal paramilitary force tasked with transporting nuclear weapons and material […]

The last hydrogen fluoride cylinder was recently removed from the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., clearing the way for a new uranium-purification technology for nuclear weapons that could switch on in 2024. Hydrogen fluoride was used in an antiquated wet-chemistry conversion and purification process for making enriched uranium metal at the plant’s […]

Fluor’s contract for the management and operations of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Laboratory was extended for five years through 2028, the company announced on Monday.  The contract had a five-year base period of performance, with a five-year option. Fluor announced the option trigger in a statement. Awarded in 2018 by the National Nuclear Security Administration […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration did not consider certain cost and radioactive waste analyses when it decided to make plutonium pits in New Mexico and South Carolina, the agency said in a court filing this week.  It is the latest turn in a two-year-old lawsuit filed in the federal district court for South Carolina in […]

A new team of nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant on Oct. 4, the twelfth rotation since the agency established a permanent presence at the site in September 2022. Teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been working with Russian and Ukrainian officials, as well […]

While assembling a nuclear weapon in mid-September, technicians at the Pantex Plant in Texas crossed a pair of color-coded and labeled wires, an error that made it past a quality control inspection, according to a report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.  During the week of September 15, Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS, which runs […]

The last hydrogen fluoride cylinder was recently removed from the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., clearing the way for a new uranium-purification technology for nuclear weapons that could switch on in 2024. Hydrogen fluoride was used in an antiquated wet-chemistry conversion and purification process for making enriched uranium metal at the plant’s […]

A new team of nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant on Oct. 4, the twelfth rotation since the agency established a permanent presence at the site in September 2022. Teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been working with Russian and Ukrainian officials, as well […]

Fluor’s contract for the management and operations of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Laboratory was extended for five years through 2028, the company announced on Monday.  The contract had a five-year base period of performance, with a five-year option. Fluor announced the option trigger in a statement. Awarded in 2018 by the National Nuclear Security Administration […]

The Department of Energy’s watchdog found no evidence that personnel at the Office of Secure Transport abused their administrative leave in a recent investigation.  The DOE Inspector General received allegations in March that Office of Secure Transport (OST) – the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) internal paramilitary force tasked with transporting nuclear weapons and material […]

KNOXVILLE – If Honeywell is gunning for the contract to run the Pantex Plant when the National Nuclear Security Administration splits the landlord deals for that site and Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., next year, the company is treating its involvement like a state secret. “I’ll answer the way that I would have answered that […]

KNOXVILLE — Design of the Savannah River Plutonium Pit Processing Facility is half finished and the facility could be built by 2032, though the date is not set in stone, a senior contractor executive said here Tuesday at an industry gathering. “You’ve got to put a stake in the sand at some point,” Dennis Carr, […]

KNOXVILLE – More than half of the employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office, which encompasses both the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas, have been working for the nuclear enterprise for less than five years, according to agency and contractor officials. There are about 12,000 employees […]

If another nuclear arms control treaty replaces the New START treaty that expires in 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration will need new technologies to keep track of Russia’s large and widely dispersed nuclear arsenal, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.  The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has started investing in […]

KNOXVILLE – More than half of the employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Production Office, which encompasses both the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas, have been working for the nuclear enterprise for less than five years, according to agency and contractor officials. There are about 12,000 employees […]

KNOXVILLE — Design of the Savannah River Plutonium Pit Processing Facility is half finished and the facility could be built by 2032, though the date is not set in stone, a senior contractor executive said here Tuesday at an industry gathering. “You’ve got to put a stake in the sand at some point,” Dennis Carr, […]

If another nuclear arms control treaty replaces the New START treaty that expires in 2026, the National Nuclear Security Administration will need new technologies to keep track of Russia’s large and widely dispersed nuclear arsenal, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.  The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has started investing in […]

Still deadlocked over whether to spend the maximum allowed by a law passed this spring, Congress on Friday still had not passed a bill to keep federal agencies open in the new government fiscal year that begins Sunday. On Friday, even before it failed by a 198-232 vote to pass in the chamber in which […]

Deliveries of the B61-12 nuclear bomb that eventually will be carried by the Air Force F-35A Joint Strike Fighter are underway, the National Nuclear Security Administration told Exchange Monitor. The Nuclear Weapons Council authorized B61-12 Life Extension Program entry into Phase 6.6, which marks full rate production, in June 2022, an NNSA spokesperson said in […]

Owing to a renewed emphasis on producing plutonium pits for use in refurbished nuclear weapons, management of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina will revert to the National Nuclear Security Administration in October 2024. The now-310-square-mile facility near Aiken, South Carolina, was the locus of plutonium and tritium production for the primary stages of […]

The wife of a former Navy employee who attempted to sell nuclear-submarine secrets to a foreign nation argues that the 22-year sentence she got for her part in the attempted espionage violates her constitutional right to due process. During a half-hour of oral arguments before the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 19, […]

National Technology and Engineering Solutions has established adequate safety systems management programs at Sandia National Laboratories, but a new watchdog report questions whether those programs can ensure safe nuclear operations at the lab’s New Mexico research reactor.  The Energy Department’s Office of Enterprise Assessments inspected the safety system management practices at Sandia’s New Mexico campus, […]