President Joe Biden (D) signed a bill into law this week to ease deployment domestically and internationally of U.S. nuclear reactors and technology.
The Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act would reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s methods for issuing licenses and require the Department of Energy to study the global nuclear industry and tell Congress how U.S. allies are deploying nuclear energy, or planning to do so.
The NNSA helps the Secretary of State and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulate exports through 123 agreements, which establish peaceful nuclear cooperation with nations wanting to import U.S. nuclear technology.
Over 700 scientists, including 10 Nobel laureates, call on President Joe Biden and Congress to cancel the Sentinel program and all plans for the land-based portion of the nuclear triad.
“There is no sound technical or strategic rationale for spending tens of billions of dollars building new nuclear weapons,” Tara Drozdenko, director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in an article by the organization. The new unit cost per missile is $214 million, whereas in January the unit cost was 37% higher than the cost estimate at $162 million. A Nunn-McCurdy breach happens when the program is 25% higher than projected.
On Monday, the Pentagon certified continuation of the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile. Also this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee said it wanted a report on the possible deployment of 450 Sentinel missiles, rather than the cap of 400.
Top officials from the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management and National Nuclear Security Administration will hold a joint town hall-style public meeting July 22 not far from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) administrator Jill Hruby and Environmental Management’s senior adviser Candice Robertson will be featured speakers at the event set for 6 p.m. Mountain Time at the Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder, DOE announced Monday.
The session will be moderated by Los Alamos County deputy manager Linda Matteson and New Mexico Natural Resources Trustee Maggie Hart Stebbins. Hruby and Robertson will give an overview of DOE’s national security and environmental cleanup priorities, then lead a question-and-answer session.
The National Nuclear Security Administration this week surveyed for aerial radiation with low-altitude helicopter flights in Milwaukee, Wis., ahead of the Republican National Convention, according to a press release.
The Nuclear Energy Support Team’s (NEST) aircraft, a twin-engine Bell-412 with radiation sensing technology, scanned for background radiation by flying in a grid pattern 150 feet in the air.
NEST is part of the Office of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation, which aims to provide early threat indications, inform of nuclear materials globally, and prevent adversaries from obtaining and detonating a nuclear device.
The U.S. Department of Labor has set a July 18 information session in Lisle, Ill., for current and former nuclear weapons workers and survivors covered by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.
Presentations were scheduled for at 9:00 a.m. Central Time at the Sheraton Lisle Naperville, 3000 Warrenville Road, Lisle, Ill., according to a July 8 press release.
“Event attendees can file their claims or obtain information about existing claims,” Compensation Director Rachel Pond said in the press release. Labor Department representatives will be on hand to answer questions and assist with claims. Registration is not required for the event. The program provides lump sum compensation and medical benefits to workers made ill as the result of working in the nuclear weapons industry, according to the press release.
