A team within the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (DNN) in the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has worked with staff from the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research and the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove all remaining high-enriched uranium from Venezuela’s RV-1 research reactor, the NNSA has reported.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced last week that it has transferred 1.7 metric tons of high-assay low-enriched uranium from Japan to the United States.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced that it has successfully removed all cesium-137 irradiators from South Carolina, as the agency seeks to eliminate radiological threats and protect communities.

Cs-137 sources are commonly used to irradiate cellular blood cells prior to transfusion to prevent graft-versus-host disease, where the donated cells view the recipient’s cells as an unfamiliar threat. If stolen from a less-secure facility, however, the cesium inside the irradiators could be used to create a radiological dispersal device, commonly referred to as a dirty bomb.

Last year, the state of Texas, in partnership with several arms of the federal government, mounted a major response to the New World screwworm (NWS)—a parasitic fly spreading through Mexico.

This year, as the NWS has continued its northward advance toward the U.S. border, eradication efforts have continued and intensified on multiple fronts.

BWX Technologies announced on January 26 that it has begun operating its Centrifuge Manufacturing Development Facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn., with the purpose of reestablishing a domestic uranium enrichment capability to meet U.S. national security needs. The facility is part of a program funded by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration to supply enriched uranium for defense needs.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration reported that it has removed all cesium-137 irradiators from the state of Oklahoma.

In a recent press release, the Department of Energy announced an organizational realignment aimed at “expanding American energy production, accelerating scientific and technological leadership, and ensuring the continued safety and readiness of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.”

The Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, NVIDIA, and Oracle have agreed to a public-private partnership to deliver the DOE’s largest AI supercomputers, named Solstice and Equinox.

After nearly three weeks of a government shutdown, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has furloughed 1,400 employees and has retained 400 as essential employees who will continue working without pay.

On day 10 of the government shutdown, the National Nuclear Security Administration has yet to furlough workers, but a spokesperson said that could change if members of Congress don’t agree on a continuing resolution to keep the government funded.

Should that be the case, the NNSA will resort to keeping only essential unpaid workers at some point if the government shutdown continues, an agency spokesperson told Nuclear Newswire.

Russia’s lower house of Parliament, the State Duma, approved a measure to withdraw from a 25-year-old agreement with the United States to cut back on the leftover plutonium from Cold War–era nuclear weapons.

Williams

Garrish

Theodore “Ted” Garrish is the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy and Brandon Williams is the DOE’s undersecretary for nuclear security and administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration following their confirmations yesterday by the U.S. Senate.

While awaiting confirmation, Garrish has been serving since January as senior advisor to Energy Secretary Chris Wright. He assumes the duties of NE-1 that Michael Goff has held as interim assistant secretary since Kathryn Huff stepped down from the NE-1 role in May 2024. The post of acting NNSA administrator has been held by Teresa Robbins since January 20; Jill Hruby held the post from 2021 to 2025.

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.

Kansas is now one of 11 U.S. states and territories that are 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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.