On Tuesday, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released its 25-year plan for the Nuclear Security Enterprise.
The Enterprise Blueprint will align the delivery of specialized infrastructure with the demands across the nuclear stockpile, global security and naval nuclear propulsion missions, officials said. The Blueprint prioritizes capabilities, while taking a practical approach to becoming more balanced, response and resilient.
“This enterprise has managed to accomplish a lot with aging facilities but needs significant infrastructure investments to meet mission demands today and into the future,” Jill Hruby, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security of the U.S. Department of Energy and Administrator of NNSA, said. “With this Blueprint, we offer a thorough, holistic, and time-phased roadmap towards ensuring NNSA can continue to effectively address nuclear security in a rapidly changing world.”
The NNSA said the blueprint outlines how to e-establish eliminated capabilities, replace buildings that are failing and meet modern safety, security and environmental standards, and reflect the need for adaptable infrastructure for global security. The Nuclear Security Enterprise will invest in production and science infrastructure under the blueprint, a path that supports weapon design, manufacture, certification and assessment.
As part of the blueprint, the investments are initially weighed toward those actions that will sustain the current stockpile and restore production capabilities for modernizing weapons, officials said. Once those capabilities are restored, the investments will shift to revitalizing the scientific base needed to continue modernizing NSE facilities and technologies and providing the capacity for mission needs.