National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)

The Joe Biden administration ought to look at undoing the legal deadlines the National Nuclear Security Administration faces to begin production of new nuclear weapon triggers, a former senior official with the agency said this week. “I think the administration needs to look at how those statutory timelines really line up to the programmatically driven […]

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management selected Hendon, Va.-based SRS Critical Infrastructure Security as the winner of the new Security Services Contract, potentially worth $1 billion over 10 years, at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. SRS Critical Infrastructure Security, or SCIS, is composed of Securitas CIS, K2 Solutions, Spectra Tech, Inc. […]

A building that handles high explosives at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, briefly shut down earlier this month after a worker’s dosimeter showed up with an unusually high dose — after it was “inadvertently lost” in the facility by its wearer, a spokesperson for the plant said Tuesday. “It is believed that the employee’s […]

By April, both of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s next-generation plutonium-pit factories should reach the critical decision 1 milestone that solidifies the long-conceptualized designs of the facilities intended to manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores for most of this century. The semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency is planning the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project at the Los […]

In a stark reminder that the pandemic is not over, even with confirmed cases falling across the nuclear security enterprise, two more National Nuclear Security Administration personnel died from COVID-19 this week. The two fatalities, one at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., and the other at the Nevada National Security Site, brought total […]

After winter weather crippled many parts of Texas’ electricity grid, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons maintenance hub near Amarillo, Texas, decided to keep some personnel home during the first four days of this week. “In order to reduce energy consumption during the unprecedented winter storm impacting the Amarillo area, Pantex cancelled day, swing, […]

After winter weather crippled many parts of Texas’ electricity grid, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons maintenance hub near Amarillo, Texas, decided to keep some personnel home during the first three days of this week. “In order to reduce energy consumption during the unprecedented winter storm impacting the Amarillo area, Pantex cancelled day, swing, […]

The Joe Biden administration ought to look at undoing the legal deadlines the National Nuclear Security Administration faces to begin production of new nuclear weapon triggers, a former senior official with the agency said Wednesday. “I think the administration needs to look at how those statutory timelines really line up to the programmatically driven timelines […]

A building that handles high explosives at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, briefly shut down earlier this month after a worker’s dosimeter showed up with an unusually high dose — after it was “inadvertently lost” in the facility by its wearer, a spokesperson for the plant said Tuesday. “It is believed that the employee’s […]

A Tennessee environmental group is not planning to sue the National Nuclear Security Administration again over the Uranium Processing Facility, despite reserving the right to do so in a recent court filing. “[W]e have no plans at the current time to file additional litigation,” Ralph Hutchison,  coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, wrote […]

By April, both of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s next-generation plutonium-pit factories should reach the critical decision 1 milestone that solidifies the long-conceptualized designs of the facilities intended to manufacture new nuclear-weapon cores for most of this century. The semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency is planning the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project at the Los […]

In what could be one of the final motions in the case before it heads toward a trial, the ex-chief financial officer of Mission Support and Tests Services repeated his argument that a federal anti-corruption law aimed at public companies applies to the private contractor, and that he filed whistleblower disclosures about financial impropriety at […]

The Los Alamos National Laboratory signed a 10-year lease on an office building in downtown Santa Fe, N.M., about 35 miles southeast by road from the main laboratory campus.  As many as 75 people could occupy the office space, which includes the first-floor of the Dorothy McKibbin Conference Center. The leased space will support the […]

The former head of the National Nuclear Security Administration is one of the hundreds of people who will be caught up in the Joe Biden administration’s purge of Pentagon advisory boards this month. Ex-Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty got a spot on the Defense Policy Board during the eleventh hour of the Donald Trump administration, shortly after then-Secretary of […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration still has not awarded Nuclear Fuel Services a contract to purify uranium for nuclear weapons programs, but the City of Oak Ridge this week repeated its opposition to the move, which it continued to paint as a job-killer for the region. “The logistics and costs that would be required to […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) will leave the Senate Armed Services Committee and join the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, keeping intact an important legislative shield for nuclear sites in the Land of Enchantment. I’m looking forward to serving as Vice Chair of the Joint Economic Committee as well as a member of the Appropriations Committee. I’ll also […]

A group of environmentalists stopped trying to convince a federal judge to stop construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., according to a recent court filing in a three year-old lawsuit. The plaintiffs — the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and the […]

January 2021 came and went without an announcement from the National Nuclear Security Administration about the technology it prefers to use to build the next U.S. uranium enrichment facility.  The semiautonomous Department of Energy Nuclear weapon-weapon steward has a choice between the AC100 technology developed by Centrus Energy Corp. of Rockville, Md., and a smaller […]

Before leaving office with the rest of the Donald Trump administration, then-Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette asked a federal nuclear safety board for a 60-day extension to produce a report on concerns about transuranic waste handling at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. In the letter dated Jan. 19, and posted last week on […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security is seeking a subcontractor to build the National Nuclear Security Administration’s High Explosives Science and Engineering facility at the Pantex Plan in Amarillo, Texas, according to a procurement note posted online. The three-building High Explosives Science and Engineering facility is one part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Primary Capability Modernization […]

Kim Budil will become the 13th director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California on March 2, the younger of the two U.S. nuclear-weapons design laboratories announced Thursday. Budil was mostly recently Livermore’s director of weapons complex and integration, responsible for the lab’s major weapon refurbishments, including the W80-4 air-launched cruise-missile warhead and the […]

The Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility being built at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is roughly 25% complete and construction should be finished by the end of 2022, an agency spokesperson said by email this week. A joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Construction was awarded the contract to build […]

Jennifer Granholm, President Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of energy, vowed Wednesday that cleaning up the Hanford Site would be a top priority if she is confirmed by the Senate. “You have my assurance that this is going to be a priority,” Granholm, the former Michigan governor, said in response to questioning from Sen. Ron […]

The Outfall 200 Mercury Treatment Facility being built at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee is roughly 25% complete and construction should be finished by the end of 2022, an agency spokesperson said by email Wednesday. A joint venture of APTIM and North Wind Construction was awarded the contract to build the […]

COVID-19 is not stopping Super Bowl 55, nor stopping the National Nuclear Security Administration’s annual sweep of background radiation levels at the site of the big game ahead of the coin toss. The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency will again dispatch its Nuclear Emergency Support Team’s Bell 412 helicopter, equipped with passive radiation […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security is seeking a subcontractor to build the National Nuclear Security Administration’s High Explosives Science and Engineering facility at the Pantex Plan in Amarillo, Texas, according to a procurement note posted online. The three-building High Explosives Science and Engineering facility is one part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Primary Capability Modernization […]

Attorneys for the Nevada National Security Site’s prime contractor want a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit from the company’s disgruntled ex-finance chief, who is trying to prove that the privately held contractor is subject to federal law that protects whistleblowers who expose financial misconduct at publicly traded companies. In 2019, ex-Chief Financial Officer […]

A Democratic House staffer who has worked the nuclear weapons and strategic systems portfolio for the House Armed Services Committee for a decade has taken a Pentagon post with a similar bailiwick in the Joe Biden administration. Leonor Tomero will be deputy assistant director for nuclear and missile defense programs after inauguration day, the administration […]

Vaccinations have started at some National Nuclear Security Administration sites, which as a group racked up more than 150 new COVID-19 cases this week, with recoveries outpacing new confirmed infections, according to agency data. The labs that received vaccines did not reply to questions about how many workers they had vaccinated, at deadline. The Nevada […]

Donald Trump appointee Charles Verdon has taken over as acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the semi autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency confirmed Friday. Meanwhile, David Huizenga, No. 3 at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its top career official, will take over as acting Secretary of Energy until the Senate […]