Is it possible to do this at all?

Alien Artifacts should be completely removed from NE Enemies, since there is nothing you can do with them, unless you have NE Buildings or another mod installed that utilizes Alien Artifacts and that mod should add it in. (Unless I give AA a fuel value, but NE B does that, so probably not)

I have my hands full at the moment, but will have this to-do for the next release and have NE Buildings add them in.
Thanks.

Good to hear. is there any way to do it from existing saves currently? What part of the files would I have to look at to remove it?

I just did a quick test, and if you turn off Alien Artifact drops in the Mod settings, they will be removed and stop dropping.
Any reason you can't just do that?

Thanks.