NNSA budget under President Warren

Ok, what will the NNSA budget look like under President Warren? Trump is toast now, there is no second term and he might be gone before then, so having 1 year of Pence will not mean much. Doubt Biden can survive the scandal either so it is Warren or Sanders. I would bet Warren. Does anyone know what her stance is? She seems anti-nuke from what comments she has made. In any case with end of Trump coming big changes are in store for America.

Sandia Labs: things to come.

Sign of things to come. Sandia Labs is doubling and almost tripling the cost for medical insurance for its retirees.

Sandia is raising all its monthly retiree health insurance premiums by $93 a month. For some, that's almost triple.

Read their letter to retirees here on the first post: www.thesandiatreatment.com

I know Sandia Labs is self-insured for employees. What about retirees?

Consolidated Nuclear Security investigation

CNS conducting investigation at Pantex. DOE Inspector General notified.

https://www.myhighplains.com/news/cns-conducting-investigation-at-pantex/

How are time fraud issues handled elsewhere? Understand a couple at Los Alamos have been brushed aside.

Nuclear myths

Nuclear weapons strange myths:

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-top-5-strange-myths-about-americas-nuclear-triad-are-wrong-81466

Delay in nuclear gravity bomb and warhead upgrades

Nuclear Gravity Bomb and Warhead Upgrades Face New Delays

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2019/09/04/nuclear-gravity-bomb-and-warhead-upgrades-face-new-delays/

By: Joe Gould and Aaron Mehta

Defense News Conference

WASHINGTON ― The United States’ B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb may face an 18 month delay during production, with the W88 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead facing a shorter delay, a top National Nuclear Security Administration official confirmed Wednesday.

The B61-12 life-extension program consolidates and replaces the older B61-3, -4, -7 and -10 variants, while the W88 Alteration 370 is meant to replace the arming, fuzing and firing subsystem for the W88 warhead for the Trident II sub-launched ballistic missile. The two are among five major modernization programs underway at the agency.

Both had been due for production in 2020, but neither will have their first production units delivered on time, according to Charles Verdon, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s deputy administrator for defense programs. NNSA is working with the Defense Department to minimize the delays, but Congress has been informed both will be ready “roughly around the same time,” Verdon said at the at the 2019 Defense News Conference.

The issue stems from off-the-shelf parts used in both weapons. Both systems are planned to work for 20-30 years, and heavy stress testing of the parts raised questions for NNSA officials about whether the parts would survive for three decades. Rather than risk the pieces failing years in the future, officials decided to seek replacements now and delay moving forward with the program

The LANL decline continues

The new APS fellows (American Physical Society Fellows) are out for 2019.

LANL 5

LLNL 6

Sandia 2


So it is looking more and more like LLNL is going to the the science leader in the NNSA complex.
I doubt that many APS fellows will be given for a production facility.

Threat of lawsuit

Pit-making plans draw threat of lawsuit

https://www.abqjournal.com/1368099/pitmaking-plans-draw-threat-of-lawsuit.html

Wouldn't that be nice?

Wouldn't that be nice. Lisa Haggarty for NS Advisor.

"Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said the top candidates are Fred Fleitz, Bolton’s former chief of staff and a former CIA analyst; former deputy national security adviser Rick Waddell; Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, the undersecretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy; Army Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence's national security adviser; and Robert O’Brien, special envoy for hostage affairs at the State Department".

Prospects for NIF Success?

Since retiring from LLNL last year, I’ve been occasionally checking the news for progress concerning the NIF effort. I see that there’s recent news about NIF breaking a new energy record and news about the successful development of 2-micron fill tubes (down from 10-micron tubes) to reduce perturbations. But what’s the bottom line? Is there a sense at NIF that there may actually be a realistic possibility of NIF achieving ignition in the foreseeable future?

Are Real NNSA and Contractor Safety Culture Changes Occurring?

"WIPP waste accident a 'horrific comedy of errors'"

"A DOE official quoted by Trento said a root problem is "the fact that DOE has no real operational control over the NNSA. Under the guise of national security, NNSA runs the contractors, covers up accidents and massive cost overruns and can fire any DOE employee who tries to point out a problem. Because they control so many jobs and contractors, every administration refuses to take them on."..."The contractor game at NNSA is played this way: Major corporations form LLC's [limited liability companies] and bid for NNSA and DOE contracts. For example, at SRS [Savannah River Site] they bid to clean up waste and get some of the billions of dollars from Obama's first term stimulus money. Things go wrong, little gets cleaned up, workers get injured or exposed to radiation and outraged NNSA management cancels the contract. A new LLC is formed by the same NNSA list of corporate partners and they are asked to bid on a new management contract. The new LLC hires the same workers as the old management company and the process gets repeated again and again."

https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/794/wipp-waste-accident-horrific-comed-errors

Rick Perry tours contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry tours contaminated Santa Susana Field Laboratory

https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/communities/simi-valley/2019/09/06/rick-perry-energy-secretary-santa-susana-field-laboratory/2232710001/

We don’t need more pits!

This is form June. I no Mello fan but he has a point on this.


We don’t need more pits, LANL can’t make them

https://www.abqjournal.com/1329193/we-dont-need-more-pits-lanl-cant-make-them.html

In fact, LANL as a whole is entirely unsuited to production for fundamental, unchangeable reasons. Faraway bureaucrats and distracted congresspersons can’t change LANL’s inappropriate location, topography, geology, institutional identity and culture by diktat.

Now, with another big study done, NNSA has told Congress that LANL cannot do this, no matter how much money is spent. For some reason, our delegation hasn’t gotten the message.

From the engineering perspective, the only realistic plan for enduring pit production involves the brand new, partially constructed plutonium facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Which model?

Did LANS and LLNS move work at LANL and LLNL away from a workforce acknowledged mission centric model, to a contractor profit centric model?