October 26, 2023

Bulletin 332: Mark your calendars: Nov. 16 forum on the proposed U.S. program to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal, centrally reliant on LANL's proposed "pit" factory

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Previously: Bulletin 331: NNSA plutonium warhead core ("pit") production update; Stumbling along, early-to-need, sans schedule and cost estimates, maximizing cost, jeopardizing other programs,, Oct 20, 2023

Washington, DC -- If you are interested please save the date! On Nov. 16, from 6-8 pm MST, we will host a panel discussion in Santa Fe in the main hall of the Unitarian Universalist church (map), on the proposed crash program to increase U.S. nuclear weapons production, deployment, and spending by 2035, along with rapid qualitative and quantitative increases in other strategic weapons, in order to be able to deter or defeat Russian and Chinese forces simultaneously, as proposed in the "Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States," released on October 12. The report calls for more missiles, submarines, bombers, warheads, missile defenses, cyberwar capabilities, and space war assets -- and immediate preparations for uploading more warheads on existing missiles. The bipartisan report calls for greater reliance on nuclear weapons threats in regional wars with Russia and China, since the U.S. is likely to lose such wars without playing the nuclear card.

We aim to livestream this gathering. At a minimum we will webcast it immediately afterwards. Stay tuned for more information about the panel, which is coming together.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is an essential part of this crash program, in its huge effort ($19 billion just through possible 2031 startup) to build, staff, and start to operate a 24/7 factory for just 30 plutonium warhead cores ("pits") per year (ppy). Without these few LANL pits, which would allow a new warhead program to start up, this proposed nuclear weapons buildup would be impossible. While there are no foreseen problems with existing pits or warheads during this timeframe, without new LANL pits no all-new warheads can be produced during this period, as there is no other place to make the pits for them until a few years later, when pits might actually be needed for existing warheads.

Stripping away all the euphemisms, the "national security" purpose of LANL pit production is to enable this new arms race. Maintaining pit production expertise, training, technology development -- all that can be (and has been) done without investment in a new factory and without actual stockpile production. (Greed, arrogance, and stupidity also play a large part in ginning up the new mission, of course.)

LANL also aims to successfully propose and then design and test brand-new weapons, as its "LANL Agenda" reports describe (LANL Agenda, 2023 update; 2022 update; LANL Agenda, 2021), much as this latest report recommends. (Nuclear testing is now done in this country without nuclear explosions per se. There is no risk of re-starting nuclear testing in the old sense, because of the tremendous nonproliferation downsides and the by-now total lack of need.)

Nuclear weapons development is LANL's core purpose and -- up to now -- its sole raison d'etre. What is new is that now LANL's contractor, NNSA, and the New Mexico Democratic congressional delegation want LANL to become a nuclear weapons factory as well as a lab, reversing prior public opposition from all these parties.

With post-Cold War pretensions of peace now fully in the rear-view mirror, the nuclear weapons lobby aims to burst from its fiscal and policy chains. No longer satisfied with the rewards of "stewardship," LANL in particular is a truly global menace -- the best-funded nuclear weapons facility in the world, soon to also have a pit factory, long before existing warheads wear out.

Some in Congress expect LANL pit production to be "temporary," notwithstanding the huge expense, as I am told. They expect the larger, safer, and more capable Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) to take over when LANL's main plutonium facility (PF-4) acquires too many problems to continue -- which frankly could happen at any time. In 2020 NNSA wrote Congress they hoped to keep PF-4 operating through 2045, long enough to be sure the SRPPF is up and running at sufficient capacity.

At present, PF-4 is still about a decade away from reliable 30 ppy production. Assuming NNSA is successful at extending PF-4's life, about half that expected life may be used up in remodeling before steady production can occur. Rational observers should see something akin to a kind of institutional compulsion in this, wired in by the use of bonuses and career pressures.

Our November 16 panel will look at these and related issues more closely. We hope you will attend.

Please do read and share our daily Ukraine war updates, some of which include our comments, if you want to know our take. The path to "reducing nuclear dangers" goes straight through ending the U.S. role in sustaining the needless war in Ukraine -- and, needless to say, the horrific ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine.

Be well everybody,

Greg