
Materials shortages and labor productivity drove a two-year delay to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) next factory for nuclear-weapon secondary stages, the head of agency said Thursday. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties it created sourcing materials, “construction is just really hard in the United States now,” Jill Hruby, administrator of the NNSA, said in remarks to a virtual forum hosted by the Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance and the Hudson Institute. Also, Hruby said, “productivity…