The cost of the next subcritical nuclear testing facility in Nevada crept up a little, according to an audit report published Monday by the Department of Energy’s Inspector General.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) now projects a maximum combined cost for the U1a Complex Enhancement Project (UCEP) of $577 million, a little more than the $560-million estimate the agency provided to the Exchange Monitor in September.
The NNSA revised UCEP’s cost sharply upward in 2021, though supply chain issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic have since made things incrementally worse, the Inspector General wrote in its recent report, published Monday but dated Nov. 22.
The Inspector General said the project suffered from “weak program management” and recommended, among other things, that the NNSA require a more thorough accounting of line-item projects such as UCEP in the annual performance evaluation for the Nevada site prime contractor, the Honeywell-led Mission Support and Test Services.
That would allow the government’s “evaluators to consistently apply performance ratings and document the reasonableness of award justifications in final evaluations,” the Inspector General wrote.
NNSA said it “will consider” that recommendation and make a decision by Dec. 31, 2023.
UCEP comprises two construction subprojects. The smaller of the two, already completed, is UCEP 10, which created access to the new underground test lab about 1,000 feet beneath the desert. UCEP 20, the larger subproject that drives the budget, involves developing existing underground facilities and mining out new drifts at U1a to build the infrastructure needed to host advanced imaging devices that will be used in future subcritical experiments.
Subcritical experiments aim to quantify the effects of age on U.S. nuclear weapon components without resorting to nuclear explosions.
