[drawingthesun]

Why is the only lab that can make new cores for America's nukes privately owned?

Honestly this is utter madness.

Surely one of the most critical core components of America's entire nuclear deterrent should be government owned and run?

What am I missing?

[Tangurena2]

All (but one) of the national engineering labs are joint ventures. Owned by DoE, operated/managed by some university.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_En...

I used to work at NREL.

[buescher]

"Privately-run" is not "privately-owned", and it might be a bit misleading. The DOE hires government contractors to run its laboratories.