Morning Briefing - May 20, 2019
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May 20, 2019

Pantex Explosives Facility Cleared for Full Scale Ops After Two Years

By ExchangeMonitor

The National Nuclear Security Administration gave the go-ahead for the roughly $145 million High Explosive Pressing Facility at the Pantex Plant to begin full-scale operations, according to a Thursday press release from the semi-autonomous DOE nuclear weapons agency.

The facility can press some 2,500 pounds of conventional high explosives a year, and up to 500 explosive hemispheres, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wrote in its presser. Nuclear weapons depend on conventional explosives to begin the chain reaction that causes a nuclear detonation.

The Army Corps of Engineers built the High Explosives Pressing Facility under a firm fixed price contract for the NNSA. The Army Corps. Broke ground on the facility in 2011 and finished construction in 2017.

The new, 45,000 square-foot facility replaces and consolidates older facilities, some of which were around 50 years old, according to NNSA’s presser.

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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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