Unforeseen disruptions to Los Alamos pit production would jeopardize new warhead, warns NNSA boss

• By Colin Demarest cdemarest@aikenstandard.com
• September 18, 2021

Any sort of unanticipated, long-term disruptions to plutonium pit production at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory would jeopardize the new W87-1 warhead until similar manufacturing capabilities get off the ground in South Carolina, National Nuclear Security Administration boss Jill Hruby recently told members of Congress.

While plans to produce enough of the plutonium cores at Los Alamos by 2026 are "still achievable," relying on the single site carries a certain amount of risk, Hruby wrote to Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a state with its fair share of missiles.

Plutonium pits made "at Los Alamos National Laboratory are key to meeting" military requirements, Hruby said, emphasizing in her Aug. 25 letter that her agency is "committed to continued coordination with" the Department of Defense "to identify options to mitigate risks to W87-1 production."

The sought-after plutonium pits — fissile cores, or triggers — are one of several critical puzzle pieces in the nuclear modernization jigsaw; they are bound for the W87-1 warhead, which would be deployed on the nascent, and controversial, Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, itself billed as the future.

Rep. Joe Wilson referenced Hruby's missive earlier this month while defending the need for two pit production hubs: the first at Los Alamos, at PF-4, and the second at Savannah River, at the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. Both Cheney and Wilson, R-S.C., are members of the House Armed Services Committee.

"Having two sites eliminates a single-point failure. Los Alamos and the Savannah River Site work together to create a resilient production of our nuclear weapon cores," Wilson said during a markup of the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act. "Both sites are crucial, and critical, for deterrence for peace."

But opponents argue a tandem approach is wasteful — and, perhaps, conciliatory. Each pit factory will cost billions of dollars. And lawmakers and watchdogs alike have questioned the pressing need for pits, a component the U.S. has not been able to craft en masse for years.

"Pit production in the late 2020s and early 2030s enables Livermore's W87-1 warhead program. It has no other purpose," said Greg Mello with the Los Alamos Study Group, a New Mexico-based policy organization. "LANL pit production is a very expensive way to keep Livermore lab in high clover while providing a multiple-warhead option for the Air Force's new missile. It's a gravy train for all three weapons labs."

Relying on Los Alamos for the warhead components, Mello suggested, is quixotic: "Realistically, the United States is not going to depend solely on a pit facility that is too small, too fragile, too crowded and too old."

Currently, there "are no impacts to the planned production of the W87-1 warhead based on the latest results for pit production capacities and timelines," according to Hruby, a former Sandia National Laboratories director. The 2026 deadline, she further explained to Cheney, affords a "considerable time margin" in coordination with the warhead work.

The Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility is projected to be completed between 2032 and 2035, according to a late-June announcement from the National Nuclear Security Administration. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, though, has said "at the earliest, Savannah River would be able to be online and begin producing pits by 2034."

"So," the Washington Democrat said this month, "that's four years after our 2030 requirement."