Oak Ridge Today

NNSA signs $600 million contract to build its first exascale supercomputer

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Image courtesy Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

The National Nuclear Security Administration has signed a $600 million contract with Cray Inc. to build the first exascale supercomputer for the NNSA at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

It is one of three exascale systems to be built at U.S. Department of Energy or NNSA laboratories. The other two exascale machines will be at DOE laboratories: Aurora at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago and Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

ORNL currently has the most powerful supercomputer in the world, Summit, and LLNL has the second-fastest, Sierra. They are both petaflop systems. Summit is capable of 200 petaflops, or 200,000 trillion calculations per second.

All three of the new exascale supercomputers will be built by Cray using their Shasta architecture, Slingshot interconnect, and new system software platform, the NNSA said in a press release Tuesday.

An exascale computer will be able to solve calculations up to 50 times faster than today’s top supercomputers, exceeding a quintillion, or 1018, calculations per second. That’s a billion billion calculations per second.

[Read more…]

(For members) New lithium building a priority as ceiling materials fall in old one

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Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

Building 9204-2 (Beta 2) is pictured above at center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Part of Building 9204-2E (Beta 2E) is pictured in the top left. (Photo courtesy Consolidated Nuclear Security)

 

A new lithium processing facility that could be built in Oak Ridge is a priority for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which has cited worker safety and materials that have fallen from the ceiling at the old building now used at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

As a priority, the new lithium processing facility is right behind the number one priorities: the production of plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and uranium processing at the Uranium Processing Facility, which is now under construction at Y-12, said Charles Verdon, NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs.

NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty cited the materials that have fallen from the ceiling at the old Y-12 building used for lithium processing, 9204-2, or Beta 2, in her response to questions during a budget hearing with the U.S. House Energy and Water Development Subcommittee on Tuesday.

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Y-12: Work complete on W76-1 warhead program

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Photo from National Nuclear Security Administration fact sheet on the W76-1 Life Extension Program.

Photo from National Nuclear Security Administration fact sheet on the W76-1 Life Extension Program.

 

Note This story was updated at 4:40 p.m. Jan. 26.

After two decades, work was completed in December on a program to extend the life of the W76 nuclear warhead, the Y-12 National Security Complex said on Monday.

That ended a decade of work to extend the service life of the original warhead design by 40 years, Y-12 said.

“This warhead plays a vital role in maintaining the nation’s credible nuclear deterrent,” said Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC, which manages and operates Y-12 for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Life Extension Program, or LEP, is for the W76-1 warhead. The W76-1 is a refurbished W76-0 warhead. The W76-0 warhead is a submarine-launched ballistic missile system that was first introduced into the stockpile for the U.S. Navy in 1978. The warhead is deployed with Trident II D5 missiles on Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines. [Read more…]

Y-12 facilities could be crucial in plan to replace W78 warhead

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U.S. Air Force missile maintainers working on an intercontinental ballistic missile. (Source: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Braydon Williams/GAO-19-84)

U.S. Air Force missile maintainers working on an intercontinental ballistic missile. (Source: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Braydon Williams/GAO-19-84)

 

The National Nuclear Security Administration is preparing to restart a program to replace the W78 nuclear warhead, and new facilities at the Y-12 National Security Complex could be important to that project, a federal agency said Friday.

The W78 is one of two types of warheads on U.S. Air Force intercontinental ballistic missiles. The W87 is the other.

Critical components inside the W78 are aging, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which published a report about the warhead replacement program on Friday. Also, the military’s requirements for, among other things, the safety and security features of the warhead have changed since it entered the stockpile in 1979, the GAO said.

Besides being used by the Air Force, the replacement W78 warhead could be used in ballistic missiles launched from Navy submarines, although further studies are required, the GAO said.

The two Y-12 facilities that could affect the warhead replacement program are the Uranium Processing Facility, which is now under construction, and the Lithium Production Facility, which could have a new building through a project that is still in the planning stages. [Read more…]

(For members) NNSA modernizing weapons as U.S. nuclear stockpile shrinks

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Image from the Fiscal Year 2019 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which was released in October 2018.

Image from the Fiscal Year 2019 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which was released in October 2018.

Image from the Fiscal Year 2019 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which was released in October 2018.

The U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile continues to shrink and it’s gotten older, but the National Nuclear Security Administration, which has a site in Oak Ridge, has four modernization programs under way. That’s the busiest the NNSA has been since the Cold War era, Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said in a report to Congress in October.

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, which enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb used in wartime, has been involved in the work to modernize some weapons and dismantle others as the stockpile changes.

The rest of this story, which you will find only on Oak Ridge Today, includes more information about Y-12’s work on nuclear weapons and a series of nine questions and answers with Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at Federation of American Scientists. 

The rest of the story is available if you are a member: a subscriber, advertiser, or recent contributor to Oak Ridge Today. 

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New UPF project director replaces Strock, who is retiring

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Brian Reilly

Brian Reilly

Consolidated Nuclear Security LLC announced last week that Brian Reilly will become project director for the Uranium Processing Facility.

CNS is the new contractor that will manage and operate the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, starting this summer.

A press release said Reilly has 34 years of commercial nuclear engineering, procurement, and construction leadership and project management experience. A Bechtel senior vice president, Reilly managed Bechtel’s global nuclear operations for six years and has led numerous nuclear projects from conceptual studies and design through all aspects of engineering, procurement, and construction. [Read more…]

U.S. must combat nuclear proliferation, maintain safe weapons arsenal, NNSA nominee says

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Frank Klotz

Frank Klotz

The United States must continue to lead international efforts to limit and reduce nuclear arsenals, combat nuclear proliferation, and secure nuclear materials across the globe, the retired military officer who has been nominated to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration told a Senate committee.

But the NNSA has a second, unique responsibility: maintain a safe weapons arsenal, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz said in prepared remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday morning. [Read more…]

Microwaves could melt uranium at UPF, help remove carbon impurities

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Y-12 Microwave Crucible

A microwave operator handles the crucible that holds the material as it is melted. Microwave technology is the preferred method for melting materials because of the ease of removing carbon impurities from the metal. (Photos courtesy B&W Y-12)

New microwaves that can melt metal and help remove carbon impurities from uranium could be used in the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex.

Y-12 doesn’t plan to use any of its traditional ovens, known as vacuum induction melters, or VIMs, in the UPF, officials said. Those ovens use electric currents and a magnetic field to melt metal.

But it’s easier to “float out” carbon impurities in microwaves because they don’t stir molten metals the way the traditional ovens do, Y-12 officials said. Carbon contaminants in uranium castings could be reduced by 30 percent.

Y-12 melts and casts uranium to combine it into hollow cylinders for storage, make parts for the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, and supply nuclear fuel for the U.S. Navy. Microwaves could eventually be used for all three tasks. [Read more…]