February 29 (Leap Year) Update: The Oceanic Pintail is expected back in its home port of Barrow on the Monday afternoon, February 29, high tide. US DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration maintains its unjustified and stunned silence about the shipment to SRS of German and Swiss plutonium on board the Pintail. NNSA’s silence is driven by some unknown PR reasons, likely that it wants to “announce” the “news”of the plutonium shipment at the Nuclear Security Summit. But, uh, NNSA officials and summit planners, that plutonium-shipment cat is already out of the nuclear bag.
February 26, 2015
The Oceanic Pintail, the UK-flagged ship that just carried plutonium from Germany and Switzerland to the Savannah River Site, is due back in its home port of Barrow-in-Furness, England.
The US DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is still mum about the shipment, not due to security reason (as the shipment has arrived) but for some unknown PR reasons. NNSA is letting PR trump security and openness, but why? The answer may well be that the plutonium-shipment operation is part of PR efforts associated with the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington at the end of March.