For immediate release April 17, 2024

Los Alamos to make plutonium cores ("pits") for new ICBM, Savannah River to make pits for new submarine missile warhead

Recycled pits to be used in up to half of new submarine warheads

Internal NNSA cost estimates suggest Savannah River facility could cost $18-25 billion, roughly double last year's estimate and comparable to LANL

Contact: Greg Mello, 505-265-1200 office, 505-577-8563 cell

Permalink * Prior press releases

Albuquerque, NM -- This morning National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) chief Jill Hruby, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, reiterated that the plutonium warhead cores ("pits") to be made at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) beginning in late 2024 are to be used in warheads for the silo-based "Sentinel" intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

This warhead, called the W87-1, is slated to begin production in the fiscal year (FY) 2031-2032 period, using pits to be stockpiled from future LANL production up to that time, however many pits that turns out to be.

The Sentinel ICBM is struggling with major cost increases and program delays (see articles here; page under construction) and is opposed by many arms control advocates. Curiously, many of the same arms control advocates have supported jump-starting NNSA pit production by investing in LANL pit production -- for the Sentinel system.

Pits to be produced at the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) are by contrast to be used in W93 warheads, to be deployed on Trident missiles carried by Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines.

Up to half of the W93 population will use recycled pits, Hruby said (written testimony at p. 3; video of colloquy on pits with Sen. Angus King at 1:23-1:27). 

Hruby's testimony implies that the W93 pit production run at SRPPF will be curtailed to support production of other (post-W93) warhead types, not described.

Earlier this year, Hruby said SRPPF would produce W93 pits when it opens (keynote address, Nuclear Deterrence Summit, 2/1/24), but the use of recycled pits in the W93 program has not been mentioned up to now.

Hruby describes the LANL's target pit production rate as "30" pits per year. NNSA expects to have the "minimum" capability needed to produce 30 pits per year "in or near 2028" at LANL "with increasingly dependable capability attained each year through 2032" (p. 3).

At SRPPF, NNSA expects "completion of construction and turnover to operations in 2032," followed by full production "a few years" later.

How many years later was not specified. Last year, Savannah River Site (SRS) officials stated it had been tasked to achieve the "first production unit" in 2035 (SRS presentation at 3:00). Construction, SRS was told (and Hruby testified today) would be complete by 2032. The earliest steady production could occur would then be 2036 (see, for example, p. 2157).

Current NNSA budget documents suggest completion of construction could be delayed to as late as 2035, however (p. 278), which could delay rate production until 2039, ceteris paribus.

The SRPPF baseline production rate is now expected to exceed 50 pits per year by an unknown amount (e.g. Hruby speech of 2/14/23, 35:00-38:00).

Costs at LANL and SRPPF have grown many-fold since both projects began. Total start-up costs at LANL exceed $21 billion, including the production ramp-up through 2032. In this year's budget request and in Hruby's testimony today, construction and start-up costs at SRPPF are estimated to lie in the $18-$25 billion range, according to NNSA. Additional costs are being incurred at other sites.

Study Group Director Greg Mello:

"Delays in expected pit production and limitations on capacity have begun to curtail the degree of novelty potentially available to the U.S. nuclear weapons community, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Other infrastructure limitations, skilled labor gaps, supply chain inadequacies, as well as management shortcomings, also impinge on the pace and degree of U.S. nuclear weapons modernization.

"Rather than rail against these limitations, as many hawks in Congress are wont to do, a better approach would be to reexamine just why a nuclear arms race is supposedly necessary in the first place. NNSA and DoD need to a) slow down, and b) down-scope their $2 trillion nuclear modernization and maintenance program.

"What's behind the new U.S. nuclear arms race is a misplaced faith that more and "better" nuclear weapons can deter -- deter what exactly? The "enemies" we ourselves create? Or our own decline, as we squander scarce resources -- money, sure, but more importantly our attention and skilled labor -- in a new nuclear arms race.

"I think all parties agree that pit production isn't actually needed in the 2020s or early 2030s. That much we know. And two pit factories aren't needed, especially if one of them is too small, too old, and temporary. Even if the Sentinel is "needed" -- and it's not -- the W87-1 warhead is not needed for it. There are plenty of existing warheads for Sentinel which are not in danger of "aging out."

"The more employees NNSA's contractors hire, the more production and new weapons are going to be required to keep them working. NNSA's problem is not a lack of skilled workers. It's too much work, too fast.

Dr. Hruby is riding a runaway train, and it's going in the wrong direction."

***ENDS***