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October 6, 2022 Bulletin 312: LANL's pit production to be delayed with cost increases; new resources, news; Zoom discussions; critical fundraising outreach needed -- we need you! Permalink for this bulletin (please forward). Simple home page. Detailed home page. Previously: Bulletin 311: Break the spell, denounce growing U.S. war, Oct 5, 2022 Contents:
Dear friends and colleagues -- LANL's pit production program will be delayed, with significant increases in cost By late last year, rumors of schedule difficulties at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in its plutonium warhead core ("pit") production programs began to reach us. These rumors became official and public in February of this year ("Nuclear Warhead Agency Admits Los Alamos Likely to Miss Interim Warhead Core Deadlines, Review of value, cost, of Los Alamos factory needed, Feb 12, 2022). In December 2021 we had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for LANL's plutonium "Program Management Plan" (PMP). In April of this year we filed a lawsuit for this plan and many other documents we had requested but not received ("Lawsuit seeks agency plans to accelerate production of nuclear warhead cores; Largest program in agency history is effectively secret -- and in trouble," Apr 6, 2022). That litigation continues. In late June of this year we received a heavily-redacted version of LANL's FY22-FY28 plutonium plan, dated September, 2021. (There are 103 redactions made solely under the excuse that specific passages -- sometimes single words -- must be kept from citizens to protect the sanctity of the government's "deliberative process," despite the plan being labelled "final" by NNSA, in addition to many other "creative" redactions that have been applied.) One of the newsworthy passages in the plan concerns the massive schedule slippage that occurred in LANL's pit program over the 20-month period ending in September 2021. In July and August of this year we briefed various media outlets about this and other revelations but none would touch it. Finally Exchange Monitor Publications, which had broken the story back in February, took up the story ("COVID-19 created more than a year's worth of delays for pit production at Los Alamos, lab said," Sep 27, 2022) and then the Santa Fe New Mexican followed up with a solid article("LANL's pit production a year behind schedule," Oct 4, 2022), picked up by Stars and Stripes for their important military audience. It is quite possible that the military will be among the first parts of government to pull the plug on pit production at LANL. To quote one former staffer for the Joint Chiefs, "A dollar spent on pit production at LANL, beyond training and technology demonstration, is a dollar wasted." The New Mexican article is the first in the mainstream media to document delays in LANL's pit project. LANL attributes its schedule slippage to the impacts of covid. This is unlikely to be the whole picture. As LANL says in this plan, the 14-15 month schedule slippage they experienced up to September 2021 “directly impacts” LANL's ability to produce 30 pits annually by 2026 (p. A-4). This delay has cost money, and it will incur more costs in the future. Quoting from LANL, The consolidated impact to cost is the burdened rate for all sunk costs within the COVID impact period February 2020 and as projected through September 2021, is an average composite of 12-13 months of planned and now sunk FY20-FY21 cost, added to 14-15 months planned future cost as an average composite between FY23-FY28. (p. A-6) The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has published (most of) its past and projected pit production costs at LANL over this period, which we have summarized in this spreadsheet. While NNSA's pit production costs at LANL do not include many supporting projects and programs, they do provide a lower bound for costs. Using NNSA's published cost figures, the costs to taxpayers of LANL's pit production schedule slippage come to at least $2.7 billion, as of a year ago. Of this sum, $827 million was lost from February 2020 through September 2021. These funds had been appropriated to LANL for work that -- according to LANL -- was not done. The balance (~$1.84 billion) is what this past slippage will incur in the additional future funding needed to complete pit production preparations. Looking forward, LANL's plan identifies six "high-impact uncertainties" to its pit production program, the nature of all but one of which ("resurgence of covid") are redacted. Finally, as the plan notes (p. A-12), the "tight" integration of parallel activities -- construction, installation of equipment, ongoing plutonium programs -- and the "highly fluid," increasing complexity of activities, poses "significant" and "increasingly difficult" challenges to plutonium programs at LANL. Conversations with officials in Washington last month confirm increasing tensions between existing programs and the installation of equipment in LANL's main plutonium building (PF-4). We are aware of specific challenges to LANL's pit production program, some of which may be evident later this year. These challenges should not be a surprise. No NNSA or contractor study supports 24/7 pit production at LANL as a baseline operating condition. All warn against it. Utilizing PF-4 for enduring pit production was explicitly barred by NNSA in 2017 (pp. 47-48). The Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) warned against 24/7 work in PF-4 in the strongest terms again in 2019. But that's what NNSA is doing. In our view, present U.S. pit policy represents a temporary triumph of politics and greed over engineering and good management. Disarmament and a change in national priorities is what is really needed, pronto -- but is not currently on the horizon. Instead, war fever grips Washington. Disillusionment and disinvestment will come. The country is in real trouble, which can only be ignored so long. We have posted other documents obtained via FOIA and litigation that bear on LANL pit production For the benefit of policy analysts and any interested journalists, we have posted some other useful documents obtained via FOIA requests and in some cases appeals and litigation. These include:
The utility of some of these documents is badly impaired by excessive redaction. As noted above, litigation continues, as do further FOIA requests. NNSA has largely replaced fact-based public engagement with propaganda and manipulation. LANL's infrastructure plans -- still secret from citizens, tribes, and local authorities; new web page for old site plans As noted in Bulletin 307 a little over a month ago ("Secret master plan for nuclear weapons design, production complex entails massive investments, on top of those revealed to Congress; call for opposition; press conference Tues 8/30/22), NNSA has not revealed its plans for LANL's infrastructure except in the vaguest terms in an inadequate response to our FOIA requests. (Related: LANL's "Campus Master Plan," briefing, Feb 8, 2022; LANL "Campus Master Plan" Communication Strategy, Nov 2, 2020; LANL "Campus Master Planning" presentation, Jun 18, 2020.) LANL's Campus Master Plan has still not been released to any of the outside parties which have requested it, including the Los Alamos County Council. By way of comparison, we decided to post several previous LANL site plans on a new web page, along with various older comprehensive site plans for other sites in the NNSA warhead complex. Selected other NNSA warhead complex news of interest We keep close track of pit production developments at the Savannah River Site (SRS) as well as at LANL and maintain a fairly complete web page on the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF). Some relatively recent news of note:
In other news, SRS is to be transferred to NNSA control by 2025 (paywall). The Department of Energy Environmental Management program is currently the overall site "landlord." The final authorization and appropriation for SRPPF for FY23 are not yet decided. The Senate appropriations committee proposes to add $500 million to the administration's request, as does the Senate Armed Services Committee. The House Armed Services Committee wants to add $350 million; House appropriators would add nothing. The bottom line: SRPPF is likely to receive more funding than was requested for FY23, probably $350-500 million more. The Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) project at the Y-12 site in Tennessee could be delayed by up to two years (paywall). Component production at Y-12 is even more of a schedule risk to early W87-1 warhead production than is pit production at LANL. The pits LANL would make in the 2020s and early 2030s would all be for W87-1s, the early units of which would use recycled W87-0 pits in any case, all of which will, according to prior studies, last at least 30 years in the new warhead (see Hemley et. al., here). Any delays in component production at Y-12 add to the mounting questions in our minds as to why NNSA is mounting such a risky, costly pit project at LANL on a crash basis. Do you want a Zoom discussion of any of this? Let us know! If so, let us know by return email, with dates and times you will NOT be available. We will be happy to host virtual discussions, not just about U.S. nuclear weapons but also about the hybrid war against Russia ("in Ukraine" doesn't capture it, does it?). Again, if you are interested tell us when you CAN'T take part. We can bring in other experts as well if there is enough interest. We aren't going to put scarce hours into preparing for virtual meetings, let alone ask other experts to join us, without prior indications of significant attendance. If you have particular questions, pose them and we will try to answer! Fundraising: thank you for your support; can you reach out to others? Thank you so much, all of you who have responded to our fundraising appeal by email and letter. Your support inspires us as well as makes our work possible. We need to ask you to take another step if you will. Many of you will know others who could help fund our disarmament and peace work. It can be a big step, but could you ask them if a) they know about us, or b) want to help support our work? We will be happy to answer their questions if you refer them to us. We simply don't know the people you do. We are not a watchdog organization. In addition to our peace work, we are a widely-respected nuclear weapons policy organization, the only such organization in the country over the last 12 years to successfully halt a major NNSA project. We halted other major projects as well, in years past, often simply by exposing their faults and their escalating costs. We enjoy excellent access in Washington and have conducted well over 500 policy briefings there in those same 12 years. For our friends in New Mexico -- that's most of you on this list -- we must add this: if New Mexicans, especially Santa Feans and northern New Mexicans, do not stand up for themselves nobody else will. The only reason LANL has an industrial pit mission at all is because New Mexico is perceived as having no resistance to it -- quite the opposite in fact, as our congressional delegation loves and wants all the plutonium they can get, environment and weak public opinion -- that is what they see, isn't it? -- be damned. Nothing will be accomplished by weak, isolated, sporadic efforts. Perseverance, organization, and experience are required. To be blunt, we have those. Adequate funding could amplify our efforts tremendously. For the sake of potential donors, here is how we described ourselves to one national funder in early 2021: Since 1989, the Los Alamos Study Group has worked for nuclear disarmament, environmental protection, social justice, and economic sustainability – mutually-reinforcing aims that map directly onto the converging crises we face, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Throughout this time, we have contributed thoughtful popular and policy leadership on Department of Energy (DOE) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) weapons laboratory and warhead issues, in which we have considerable – in some respects unparalleled – expertise. We have conducted hundreds of public meetings, and hundreds of briefings on Capitol Hill. We are strictly nonpartisan and factual, and we anchor policy details in a broad historical and technical perspective. We focus on practical outcomes. We have wide technical, legal, and public education experience as well as strong academic and work histories in science, engineering, law, and organizing. We draw on a wide range of other experts as needed. We have been quoted in thousands of newspaper articles and interviewed on hundreds of radio and TV programs. We have won environmental, civil rights, and freedom of information lawsuits. We have blocked major nuclear warhead infrastructure projects at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), in which efforts we have had to work against the arms control community and the New Mexico delegation. We were named one of the nation’s “top ten small green groups” in 2011 and one of eleven “favorite groups” in 2013 by Counterpunch. Our analyses of U.S. nuclear weapon modernization have been significant contributions at Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review and preparatory conferences and other international fora since the 1990s. We were significant participants at and between all international fora leading to the successful creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Greg was a Research Fellow in the Princeton Program on Science and Global Security (PSGS) in 2002 and in 2017-2020 PSGS contracted with the Study Group to produce articles for the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM) blog as well as congressional workshops on plutonium warhead core (“pit”) production. You might mention to potential donors that we wrote the reference work on U.S. nuclear weapon modernization for the past few meetings of the states parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (e.g. "US nuclear weapons since 2020: continuity & change," Dec 7, 2021; "Update on US Nuclear Weapons Modernization for the International Disarmament Community," May 13, 2020) and contributed extensively to discussions leading to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Nearly all institutional funders want LANL to host a pit factory, which has the effect of accelerating pit production and the manufacture of new nuclear weapons. To be frank, this has been and still is a Democratic Party priority. To repeat, liberals in Congress and in the foundation community are more than ready to throw New Mexico under the bus in order to accelerate nuclear weapons production. Unless and until they see more resistance in New Mexico, these liberal funders and members of Congress will continue to push pit production at LANL. A decade ago, without their help, we defeated LANL's previous quest to expand pit production. With everyone's help -- and critically, contributions -- we can again delay a new nuclear arms race. So:
Thank you for your attention and all your work for peace, Greg and Trish, for the Study Group |
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