The National Nuclear Security Administration said it finished construction of a new 15 kilovolt electrical distribution system that will provide redundant power supply for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
In a press release Tuesday, the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency said the Expand Electrical Distribution System hit its CD-4 milestone — DOE project management talk for completing construction — on Aug. 26. The project rang in at more than $32.5 million, which was more than $1 million under budget, the NNSA said. Construction started in December 2017.
The new system is intended to last at least 40 years, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) 2018 budget request, and will supplement the existing electrical system. The new system runs through Livermore, the Western Area Power Station’s Livermore Substation, and the Sandia National Laboratories’ California campus.
Crews installing the more than 11,000 feet of underground ductwork and other systems were slowed down in their work at twice by the discovery of “unexpected contamination.”
“The first was a garbage pit from the 1960s that had elevated metals and the second was the discovery of several empty drums that had elevated levels of lead,” an NNSA spokesperson wrote in an email Friday. “In both instances the project stopped work and the soils were fully evaluated for personal health safety and regulatory concerns, isolated, then disposed of according to all requirements. One area of expected metals soil contamination was also identified, but it was within California hazardous waste thresholds and upon retesting, not an issue of concern or that let to work stoppage.”
Livermore is the second, and younger, of the NNSA’s nuclear weapons design laboratories. It hosts the high-energy National Ignition Facility, used for nuclear-weapons and materials experiments, and high-performance supercomputers, among other things.
The lab is the design agency for the W87-1 intercontinental ballistic missile warhead, a refurb of the existing W87 design, slated for deployment aboard Ground Based Strategic Deterrent missiles starting in 2030 or so. Livermore is also handling the W80-4, the refurb for the warhead that will tip the planned Long Range Standoff Weapon cruise missile, also around 2030.
