National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to add protective services to its prime contract with the Nevada National Security Site’s Honeywell-led prime contract, according to a procurement note posted online recently. SOC is the incumbent security services provider at the former Nevada Test Site under a five-year deal, worth about $200-million, that began on March 1, […]

In keeping with a directive by Congress, a National Academies panel holds a fact-finding session next week on nuclear threats and weapons of mass destruction terrorism. The Nuclear Studies and Radiation Board (NRSB) of the National Academies plans a hybrid meeting for information-sharing between 12:45pm – 4 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday Aug. 15. The […]

Workers claiming Consolidated Nuclear Security shorted a slew of employees out of a paycheck’s worth of work are taking the management and operations contractor for two major nuclear-weapons production sites to trial next summer, according to a recent scheduling notice. The trial will begin on June 13, 2023, according to a scheduling order signed last […]

Japan and the United States have removed all highly enriched uranium from a research reactor at Kyoto University and shipped the material to the U.S, according to a press release from the National Nuclear Security Administration.  Transfer of the material began three years ago and ended with all 45 kilograms of the fissile isotope to […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to add protective services to its prime contract with the Nevada National Security Site’s Honeywell-led prime contract, according to a procurement note posted online recently.  SOC is the incumbent security services provider at the former Nevada Test Site under a five-year deal, worth about $200-million, that began on March […]

The South Carolina plant that puts together the rods that help the National Nuclear Security Administration top off the tritium reservoirs of U.S. nuclear weapons cleared an environmental hurdle last week that sets the facility up to operate for another 40 years. The extension, recommended July 29 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, would more than […]

The final tab for getting the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear generator back in shape to produce power for homes and businesses and irradiate tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons will be about $600 million, the Tennessee Valley Authority said Monday in a regulatory filing. On July 1, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) finished installing four […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration this week split its two headquarters-based procurement offices into three, the head of the agency said. Effective Monday, the agency’s Washington-based procurement bureaucracy comprises: the Office of Partnership Services; the Office of Infrastructure; and the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health. Peter Rodrik is the acting associate administrator for partnership […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration now expects to produce the proof-of-concept article for the refurbished W80 nuclear cruise-missile warhead by the end of fiscal year 2027, roughly two years later than planned. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency will turn out the W80-4 first production unit by Sept. 30, 2027 instead of some […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration now expects to produce the proof-of-concept article for the refurbished W80 nuclear cruise-missile warhead by the end of fiscal year 2027, roughly two years later than planned. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency will turn out the W80-4 first production unit by Sept. 30, 2027 instead of some […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration this week split its two headquarters-based procurement offices into three, the head of the agency said. Effective Monday, the agency’s Washington-based procurement bureaucracy comprises: the Office of Partnership Services; the Office of Infrastructure; and the Office of Environment, Safety, and Health. Peter Rodrik is the acting associate administrator for partnership […]

The final tab for getting the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear generator back in shape to produce power for homes and businesses and irradiate tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons will be about $600 million, the Tennessee Valley Authority said Monday in a regulatory filing. On July 1, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) finished installing four […]

The South Carolina plant that puts together the rods that help the National Nuclear Security Administration top off the tritium reservoirs of U.S. nuclear weapons cleared an environmental hurdle last week that sets the facility up to operate for another 40 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recommended a 40-year renewal for the operating license […]

In the wake of three such incidents reported over the last year, Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, asked all hands to report racist acts and threats at nuclear-weapon sites. In an email dated Wednesday, Hruby slammed the acts as “offensive,” “inappropriate” and warned that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would […]

The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets. At the end of fiscal 2021 DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) had about $10.9 billion in total carryover balances and the Office of Environmental […]

The inventory of defense-related transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico amounts to more than 3,300 containers, but most are not “ready to ship” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office manager said last week. In Technical Area 55, Triad National Security, the National Nuclear […]

Congress should enact legislation to clarify the Department of Energy’s authority to sell depleted uranium to private entities, the Government Accountability Office said this week, because such a move could curb the $7.2 billion cost to dispose of the material. As of September 2021, the feds estimate it could cost DOE $7.2 billion to convert […]

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday unveiled the year’s most generous 2023 budget proposal for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs, beating the White House’s ask by almost $700 million and agreeing with authorizers’ plans to pile unrequested money into plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site. As the House of Representatives did in […]

Congress should enact legislation to clarify the Department of Energy’s authority to sell depleted uranium to private entities, the Government Accountability Office said this week, because such a move could curb the $7.2 billion cost to dispose of the material. As of September 2021, the feds estimate it could cost DOE $7.2 billion to convert […]

The inventory of defense-related transuranic waste at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico amounts to more than 3,300 containers, but most are not “ready to ship” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Department of Energy’s Carlsbad Field Office manager said last week. While the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) has 2,273 […]

The Government Accountability Office is urging the Department of Energy to provide more details on how its nuclear weapons and cleanup programs handle federal funds carried over from prior-year budgets. At the end of fiscal 2021 the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) had about $3.2 billion in total carryover balances, and the National Nuclear […]

About 2,500 union workers at Boeing manufacturing facilities in the St. Louis area could strike Aug. 1, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other news outlets reported Sunday after members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 837 voted to reject a contract offer. The St. Louis area plants specialize in national defense […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing to lease office warehouse and storage space in northern New Mexico and Colorado, according to a notice posted online late last week. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency is considering leases within a 150-mile radius of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an environmental impact […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments said it will investigate the radioactive contamination in January of some Triad National Security employees at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s PF-4 Plutonium Facility. The facility is in the early stages of an overhaul and expansion necessary for the lab to annually produce 30 war-ready plutonium pits […]

Northern New Mexico Integrated Security, a joint venture between incumbent Centerra Group and Tsay Construction and Services, a small business with tribal ownership, won a five-year security services contract at the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, the lab announced Wednesday. Triad National Security, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s management contractor for Los Alamos, […]

The full House this week passed a bundle of six appropriations bills that would provide roughly the request funding for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs and, contrary to the will of House authorizers and President Joe Biden, keep the B83 nuclear gravity bomb in play. The bill also provides the requested funding for the […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released all the unclassified details of its fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, showing lawmakers in that chamber disagree with their House counterparts on little except by how much to exceed the White House’s request for construction of a new plutonium pit factory in South Carolina. The […]

The full House on Wednesday approved a fiscal year 2023 Department of Energy budget bill that provides more or less the requested funding for DOE’s nuclear weapons and waste programs and a small increase over the request for nuclear energy programs.  The 2023 Energy and Water Appropriations Act, part of a package of six spending […]

Bill Tindal retired as chief executive officer of Consolidated Nuclear Security, the Bechtel National-led management contractor for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s two main nuclear-weapons production sites, a company spokesperson confirmed Wednesday. “We shared with employees yesterday that Bill has retired,” the spokesperson said. Gene Sievers, site manager for Y-12 National Security Complex, is now […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Monday released all the unclassified details of its fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, showing lawmakers in that chamber disagree with their House counterparts on little except by how much to exceed the White House’s request for construction of a new plutonium pit factory in South Carolina.  The […]