NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract

September 17, 2025, 3:00PMNuclear News
BWXT’s Centrifuge Manufacturing Development Facility, currently under construction in Oak Ridge, Tenn., will provide the centrifuges that will be used at the future DUECE pilot plant. (Photo: BWXT)

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.

NNSA’s CIRP checks Kansas off its list

September 12, 2025, 6:56AMNuclear News

Kansas in now one of 11 U.S. states and territories that is free of cesium-137 irradiators—the others being Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced on September 10 that it had completed the removal of all of these medical devices from Kansas as part of its ongoing effort to reduce radiological threats in the United States.

NNSA to conduct NEPA review of plutonium pit production

May 13, 2025, 12:01PMNuclear News

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it will prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) to ensure National Environmental Policy Act compliance for the administration’s production of plutonium pits. The NNSA is inviting the public to participate in the PEIS process and to comment on the scope, environmental issues, and alternatives for consideration in drafting the document.

BWXT acquires Oak Ridge site as NNSA pursues unobligated enriched uranium

April 18, 2025, 1:00PMNuclear News

BWX Technologies Inc. has purchased about 97 acres of land in an Oak Ridge, Tenn., industrial park where the company expects to build a uranium enrichment facility using a technology called DUECE, or, Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment. DUECE was developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to provide enriched uranium for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and BWXT is several months into a yearlong engineering study to evaluate options for deploying a centrifuge pilot plant using DUECE.

Trump’s pick for NNSA administrator testifies before Senate committee

April 10, 2025, 3:00PMNuclear News

Brandon Williams appeared before the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Armed Services this week to answer questions on how he would lead the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, if confirmed for the job.

President Donald Trump announced Williams as his pick for the NNSA role in January. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he was personally involved in the selection of Williams for the role, telling the Exchange Monitor in January, “He’s a smart, passionate guy [who] wants to defend our country.”

Trump picks former N.Y. congressman for NNSA administrator

January 21, 2025, 7:00AMNuclear News

Williams

President Trump has selected Brandon Williams to head the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Williams is a former one-term congressman (R., N.Y.),from 2023 to the beginning of 2025. Prior to political office he served in the U.S. Navy. Williams’s run for office gained attention in 2022 when he defeated fellow navy veteran Francis Conole, a Democrat, but he lost the seat last November to Democrat John Mannion.

“I will be honored to lead the tremendous scientific and engineering talent at NNSA,” Williams said, thanking Trump, according to WSYR-TV in Syracuse, N.Y.

GAO: NNSA needs to improve its waste management strategy

December 19, 2024, 12:00PMRadwaste Solutions

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s strategy for managing nuclear waste from nuclear weapons maintenance and modernization activities is not comprehensive and does not fully address all statutory requirements, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

ANS standard updated for determining meteorological information at nuclear facilities

December 4, 2024, 3:00PMANS News

Following approval in October from the American National Standards Institute, ANSI/ANS-3.11-2024, Determining Meteorological Information at Nuclear Facilities, was published in late November. This standard provides criteria for gathering, assembling, processing, storing, and disseminating meteorological information at commercial nuclear power plants, U.S. Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration nuclear facilities, and other national or international nuclear facilities.

NNSA workforce initiative reaches out to universities

November 6, 2024, 9:31AMNuclear News
SRNS’s Erika Baeza-Wisdom gives an overview of SRNS pit production to UTEP students. (Photo: SRNS)

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the managing and operating contractor at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, and the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are partnering with multiple universities to develop next-generation technology and personnel pipelines to advance the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration’s two-site pit production mission.

U.S. lawmakers look to simplify export control to grow international nuclear partners

October 22, 2024, 3:00PMNuclear News

Legislative proposals focused on streamlining the U.S. nuclear energy export process have circulated on Capitol Hill for several years, notably aimed at establishing a single point of contact in the government to simplify global nuclear projects.

The most recently introduced International Nuclear Energy Act (INEA) proposal (S. 826) promotes engagement with partner nations to develop a civil nuclear export strategy and to offset China’s and Russia’s growing influence on international nuclear energy development.

Japanese fuel disposition mission starts at Savannah River Site

October 15, 2024, 3:00PMRadwaste Solutions

Employees at the H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently began the dissolution of nuclear material from a Japanese research reactor, leading to its safe disposal.

From remediation to production: The DOE’s Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative

September 20, 2024, 3:10PMRadwaste Solutions
Idaho National Laboratory employees consult on a microgrid at Utah’s Dugway Proving Ground. Two solar projects were selected for development on INL land. (Photo: INL)

On July 28, 2023, the Department of Energy launched its Cleanup to Clean Energy initiative, an effort to repurpose underutilized DOE-owned property—portions of which were previously used in the nation’s nuclear weapons program—into the sites of clean-energy generation.

HALEU without hyperbole: ANS speaks up for science and transparent risk assessment

September 11, 2024, 3:05PMNuclear News

The American Nuclear Society recently issued an open letter in support of a science-based approach to the regulation of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuels for commercial nuclear energy, voicing member concerns about hyperbole in a recent article published in Science, which advocated for restrictions on the use of HALEU despite decades of effective safeguards and security. This is not the first time ANS has stepped in to present the measured opinion of its membership on the value and appropriate regulation of HALEU.

BWXT to probe options for new centrifuge pilot plant under contract with NNSA

August 30, 2024, 12:01PMNuclear News

BWX Technologies announced on August 26 that its Nuclear Fuel Services subsidiary had received a contract from the National Nuclear Security Administration for a yearlong engineering study of a pilot plant capable of testing a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment technology developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and producing domestic-origin enriched uranium the NNSA can use for multiple national security purposes. BWXT, which has a long history of providing fuel fabrication and downblending services for the federal government, has not—until now—included enrichment in its portfolio.

SRS repurposing MOX fuel facility for national defense goal

July 29, 2024, 12:06PMNuclear News
Aecon-Wachs workers performed the D&R of equipment and commodities from the plutonium processing facility at SRS. ( Photo: SRS)

A major milestone has been reached in the construction of a plutonium pit production facility at the Savannah River Site, located near Aiken, S.C.

After 18 months of work involving local trade unions, the dismantlement and removal (D&R) of commodities and equipment throughout the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), previously installed by the Mixed Oxide (MOX) project, was completed in June 2024, the Department of Energy reported on July 24.

NNSA grants nonproliferation-related funds to two university consortia

June 25, 2024, 3:01PMNuclear News

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation has awarded a total of $50 million in cooperative agreements to the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation and the Enabling Capabilities in Technology Consortium. These two university/national lab consortia are each to receive as much as $5 million per year for five years to help support their basic and applied science research, which, in turn, will support the nuclear security and nonproliferation missions of the NNSA and workforce development for the Department of Energy’s national laboratories.

U.S. represented at international meeting on nuclear security

June 5, 2024, 10:34AMUpdated June 5, 2024, 9:30AMNuclear News

During the 2024 International Conference on Nuclear Security (ICONS) in May, representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security Administration discussed U.S. nuclear security priorities, noted their achievements and those of U.S. partners, and explained how to tackle the security challenges of today and tomorrow.

U.S., European Commission make joint statement on enhancing radioactive source security

May 23, 2024, 12:00PMNuclear News

During the International Atomic Energy Agency’s International Conference on Nuclear Security this week, leaders from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and the European Commission made a joint statement on enhancing radioactive source security.