Skip to main content

Another story on NNSA cost and quality control

Another story on NNSA cost and quality control The AP reporter hits many of the common themes that have been pointed out before in other reports. Seeing them all together highlights that while they are spread across the entire complex, Los Alamos is responsible for the majority of the total. The story was picked up and run in lots of local papers across the country, so it could factor in to the next round of contract awards. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NUCLEAR_SPENDING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Comments

Anonymous said…
What, exactly, did Heather Wilson do to earn her lucrative contracts with LANL and SNL?

The NM labs have still not been forthcoming about it. Hmmmm, I wonder why not?
Anonymous said…
How do you spend almost a quarter billion dollars on a security system like LANL did for TA-55 and then not have much to show for it? Talk about squandering money! Who were the managers in charge of this immense slush fund ?



Anonymous said…
Talking about squandering money, I heard that a few staff and even a manager in the Materials Chemistry department at SNL booked a "conference trip" to Hawaii to attend the 2012 ECS meeting.
Anonymous said…
Anonymous said...

What, exactly, did Heather Wilson do to earn her lucrative contracts with LANL and SNL?

The NM labs have still not been forthcoming about it. Hmmmm, I wonder why not?

September 19, 2013 at 10:37 PM



If you did not have much exposure to Washington in your previous jobs but had ambition to move up the ranks, a former MoC could take you around and introduce you to people. Perhaps not in the category of personal services, but someone might want to take a look at travel dates.
Anonymous said…
While LANL management is certainly great at burning and wasting money, the biggest screw up is still the Uranium facility at Y12, where the redesign will cost another 500M$.
What is more interesting ,is that the same company , which designed UPF also designed the nonworking fence at LANL, namely Bechtel.
So one wonders about the overal quality of the work at Bechtel. I certainly know the quality of the managers we get from them.
Anonymous said…
Amazing work, Bechtel.

Almost a quarter billion to build a security system for the plutonium works at LANL and nothing to show for it. Where did it go? For Bechtel manager perks? And how many achievement rewards got handed out over the years to these infrastructure managers for this fiasco?
Anonymous said…
Almost a quarter billion to build a security system for the plutonium works at LANL and nothing to show for it. Where did it go? For Bechtel manager perks?

September 22, 2013 at 4:35 PM

No, it went to the subcontractor who botched the job, and should be held legally liable. No naming of him in the media. Also no naming of the LANL managers whose job it was to oversee that contract, and whose heads should roll. Typical circling of the wagons, even before the LANS takeover.

Popular posts from this blog

Plutonium Shots on NIF.

Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...

Trump is to gut the labs.

The budget has a 20% decrease to DOE office of science, 20% cut to NIH. NASA also gets a cut. This will  have a huge negative effect on the lab. Crazy, juts crazy. He also wants to cut NEA and PBS, this may not seem like  a big deal but they get very little money and do great things.

LLNL un-diversity

Actual post from Dec. 15 from one of the streams. This is a real topic. As far as promoting women and minorities even if their qualifications are not as good as the white male scientists, I am all for it. We need diversity at the lab and if that is what it takes, so be it.  Quit your whining. Look around the lab, what do you see? White male geezers. How many African Americans do you see at the lab? Virtually none. LLNL is one of the MOST undiverse places you will see. Face it folks, LLNL is an institution of white male privilege and they don't want to give up their privileged positions. California, a state of majority Hispanics has the "crown jewel" LLNL nestled in the middle of it with very FEW Hispanics at all!