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  • 5/29/2025
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) questioned USN Admiral William J. Houston, Director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, about nuclear reactors being made for the Navy’s submarines.

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00:00Thank you, Senator Rounds. For our next round of questions, I would ask that we
00:06just ask one question since we have a second panel coming up. Mr. McConnell,
00:11you're getting a work over today. Can you provide us with an update on, no, I want
00:18to ask you this one. How are you working to ensure that Los Alamos can meet the
00:23demand for pits until Savannah River can do that rate production?
00:28Thank you, Senator. As I indicated, we've hit a major milestone in producing the
00:34first diamond-stamped War Reserve W87-1 pit at Los Alamos in October of last year.
00:42We are now actively working on the project which will allow us to achieve
00:48rate production of at least 30 pits per year at Los Alamos. We call it 30 BASE.
00:53That project is executing right now to deliver approximately 2028 and then we
01:03will follow up with additional work to improve the reliability of our ability to
01:10deliver. So a more reliable production rate at at 30 pits per year which will
01:15take us into the early 2030s. What that work means specifically is we need to move
01:22old equipment out of the space to create D&D we call it. So it's a another thing that
01:31EM does quite a lot of. In order to create white space that we can then move new
01:35work spaces, new glove boxes and capabilities in. Are you speaking specifically about Los Alamos?
01:42Yes, that's that all of that happens in in PF4. And how that ties in then to what happens at
01:48Savannah River. All right so so by 2028 we get to the 30 pit per year capability at Los Alamos.
01:56In parallel at Savannah River at the Savannah River plutonium production facility SRPPF,
02:02as I indicated we're working to mature the design to get to 90 percent design in calendar year 2026
02:09which will then allow us to move on to to construction and production of the
02:17plant by 2032 to get to rate to get to initial production and then rate
02:23production of at least 50 pits per year at Savannah River in that time frame. Thank
02:28you. Senator King. Mr. General I'm going to give you a question for the record so it
02:34doesn't count as my one question. If you could give supply the committee with
02:38some an analysis an analysis of your staffing levels. I know you've lost some
02:44key people at Hanford but then for the record not not now but if you could give
02:49me some background on that. Admiral my question is are you is his naval reactors
02:55on track with the Columbia construction project? In other words when the
03:00submarines are ready will the react will the new reactors be ready? Senator King
03:05absolutely my reactor for District of Columbia is ready. It's just waiting to be
03:09shipped when electric boat wants it. We don't ship it early just due to security
03:14requirements. Of course. And the second reactor core is 75% complete now. We don't
03:20have issues with that. Our heavy plant equipment has been we are unscheduled to meet
03:28required in yard dates so that steam generators, pressurizers, reactor
03:32cooling pumps. Our largest component which I've mentioned before that had the
03:37most concern for us was the turbine generator. Port turbine generator is an
03:42electric boat right now it's being outfitted completely tested. Starboard
03:46turbine generator has been tested and it's being packaged for shipment from the
03:50vendor across country and it is not the critical path on delivery of District of
03:55Columbia. So we are within the time frame on that. Senator Rounds. Okay with that I
04:05would like to thank our first panel for being here today and providing us with
04:09information. You may get other questions for the record and I would ask that you
04:14return those within two weeks. Thank you.

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