Bulletin 295: "The core debate"

March 23, 2022

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Dear friends and colleagues --

Previously: Bulletin 294: Please consider forwarding this fine statement from UNAC re Ukraine (March 23, 2022). (I forgot to include a link to the interesting discussion (with machine transcript), "Mass Formation and Totalitarian Thinking in This Time of Global Crisis" with Mattias Desmet and others. Now you have it.)

Dear friends and colleagues --

Reporter Annabella Farmer has written an admirable piece on the complex topic of plutonium warhead core ('pit") production at Searchlight New Mexico ("The core debate," March 23, 2022).

There have been very few -- if any -- comprehensive journalistic treatments of pit production, let alone fairly accurate ones as this one is. We commend it to you.

There are just a few places in the article that cry out for further comment:

• The cost of pit production is much higher than "$9 billion." Almost all journalists are confused about this -- as is Congress. As we have shown, using NNSA's figures with very little further estimation on our part, the total cost of pit production over fiscal years (FYs) 2019 (when the two flagship construction projects supporting the 2018 plan were first funded) through FY2033 (an optimistic estimate of when full production could first be reached) lies in the range of $31 to $38 billion, with most of these costs occurring at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). LANL's own estimates of its costs are somewhat ($3.7 billion) larger than ours for this decade.

Official cost figures are soon going to hit the street. Many people will be very shocked.

• LANL's toll of deaths and job-incurred illnesses and injuries is much greater than the article says. According to the federal Department of Labor, the job-related death toll among workers is closer to 2,000 than to "scores." Please see "As U.S. ramps up nuclear production (again), the human toll of past work continues to mount, including at LANL," Feb 5, 2020.

• It was Congress, acting on behalf of nuclear weapons interests in DoD, which set the "80 pits per year" requirement back in 2014, not pressure from the Trump administration in 2018 which did so -- although there was also that. Congress demanded, by 2027, a 90-day production demonstration at a rate of at least 80 pits per year (ppy); a provision for a two-year delay was provided, if necessary. A 90-day demonstration means you have the facilities, equipment, and staff up and running to a high degree. In the waning days of the Obama administration, NNSA set forth a detailed 80 ppy requirement, which is visible in redacted form in its Pit Production Analysis of Alternatives (AoA), began under Obama.

We are aware that Senator Heinrich attempted to get endorsement from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for a more accelerated production schedule than 80 ppy a couple of years ago, but was rebuffed.

We believe the 80 ppy-by-2030 statutory requirement will now be changed by Congress, since NNSA has testified that it can't meet that deadline and will struggle to meet prior production deadlines at LANL.

After the Searchlight article was written, there were interesting comments in the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) about pit production during Marvin Adams' confirmation hearing for the top nuclear warhead job ("NA-10") at NNSA. See this exchange with Senator Warren and this one with Senator Reed. In our opinion, Warren's comments have a broader base in Congress than just her.

Also note the presumption by Senator Reed that LANL has an "existing" pit factory that just needs "operating." According to LANL, $18 billion must be invested in LANL's "existing" pit capability to get it operating this decade.

Warren's comments were insightful. The current situation won't stand. It will be revisited. It's too much money at LANL, far too much money with too much risk, for too few pits, for too short a realistic production run.

Like Yogi Berra said, NNSA will find a fork in the road and they will take it. Either a) there will be a really huge additional investment at LANL -- bigger than the present Savannah River Site (SRS) investment, as NNSA has testified -- in order to build a big new facility that will come on line long after the SRS facility would, or b) NNSA will find an off-ramp to the present crazy plan at LANL and be satisfied with a 10-year delay in industrial pit production.

It would be nice if the arms control community began to understand how important such a delay would be to other policy objectives we share.

More soon,

Greg Mello, for the Study Group