Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor Vol. 28 No. 19
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Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor
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May 10, 2024

NNSA exploring contract options for depleted uranium production

By ExchangeMonitor

The National Nuclear Security Administration began planning Monday for a contract to annually produce 400 metric tons of high purity depleted uranium for future nuclear-weapon manufacturing.

“Vendors should assume that a contract would be awarded by July 15, 2025,” the agency wrote in a request for information published Monday. Responses to the request for information are due at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time on May 24.

If that contract is awarded, it could supplement a planned National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) program to produce high purity depleted uranium at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, as part of a follow-on contract to a pact now held by the Atkins-led Mid America Conversion Services.

The NNSA had planned to annually produce 250 tons of depleted uranium tetrafluoride, also called DUF4 and green salt, at Portsmouth. That material could be a feedstock for high purity depleted uranium metal.

In the request for information released Monday, the NNSA said it could also consider producing high purity depleted uranium with a feedstock of triuranium octoxide.

In its latest Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, released in November, NNSA said its stockpile of depleted uranium could run out in 2030.

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NEW: Via public records request, I’ve been able to confirm reporting today that a warrant has been issued for DOE deputy asst. secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition Sam Brinton for another luggage theft, this time at Las Vegas’s Harry Reid airport. (cc: @EMPublications)

DOE spent fuel lead Brinton accused of second luggage theft.



by @BenjaminSWeiss, confirming today's reports with warrant from Las Vegas Metro PD.

Waste has been Emplaced! 🚮

We have finally begun emplacing defense-related transuranic (TRU) waste in Panel 8 of #WIPP.

Read more about the waste emplacement here: https://wipp.energy.gov/wipp_news_20221123-2.asp

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