The planned Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility will wrap up its critical decision 1 review in “mid-June,” the acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor this week.
Acting Administrator Charles Verdon fine-tuned the date of the big milestone for the planned plutonium pit factory in the halls of the Senate Russell office building after testifying before the chamber’s Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee in an open hearing.
About two months ago, the head of Savannah River Site operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions said the pit facility might finish its critical decision 1 review in mid-May or early June.
The Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility’s (SRPPF) critical design 1 report will include its highest-fidelity cost estimate for the facility to date. In rough estimates made outside the critical decision process, the NNSA has said it may cost $4.6 billion to build SRPPF.
Critical decision 1 is a DOE program management milestone where the agency picks a preferred design for some project and provides a range of possible costs. A more precise cost estimate and construction schedule, or baseline, nominally follows at CD-2.
SRPPF’s companion pit factory, the Los Alamos Pit Production Project, finished its critical decision 1 review with a top-end cost estimate of about $4 billion, which includes some support facilities. The Los Alamos plant is expected to come online first and make 30 pits annually by 2030, while SRPPF is on the hook for 50 pits annually by 2030.
COVID-19 notwithstanding, the reactor plant components for the first Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine will be sent to the shipbuilder with margin to spare, the head of naval reactors said Thursday in congressional testimony.
Adm. James Caldwell, head of naval reactors, delivered the news at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. BWX Technologies, Lynchburg, Va., is the Navy’s prime contractor for Columbia reactor components.
The first Columbia submarine is supposed to go on patrol in the early 2030s, replacing an Ohio-class boat as the bearer of Trident II D5 missiles, tipped with a mixture of W76-1 and W88 warheads, plus a smaller number of W76-2 lower-yield warheads.
The outgoing management and operations contractor for the Pantex Plant and the Y-12 National Security Site got a mention in an annual Government Accountability Office report on federal cost-savings opportunities.
Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) saved the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) about $515 million between 2014 and 2018, Congress’ investigative arm wrote in the report.
The NNSA itself has credited the Bechtel National-led CNS with more than that: at least $758 million in total, according to Bechtel.
The Government Accountability Office has said that CNS had achieved most of its confirmed cost savings through labor, including by eliminating jobs at the sites.
Meanwhile, the NNSA is vetting proposals for a follow-on contract to manage Pantex and Y-12. CNS is supposed to be off the job by Oct. 1, but the NNSA is moving a little slower with the procurement than the agency hoped when, last year, it predicted a transition to the new contractor would start by June.
Summer Jones, Assistant Deputy Administrator for Production Modernization (NA-19) at the National Nuclear Security Administration said May 17 during the Department of Energy’s First 100 Days ceremony. The event marked the first 100 days of President Joe Biden’s first term in office.
