|
|
|
February 22, 2024 Bulletin 340: "Year in Pits;" Zoom update & discussion on pits 2/27; rich opportunities in the land of nuclear (dis)enchantment; end the Ukraine carnage and genocide in Gaza Permalink for this bulletin (please forward). Simple home page. Detailed home page. Previously: Bulletin 339: Meetings this month, starting tomorrow (in person) and this Thursday (Zoom); join NM list if interested; please endorse the "Call for Sanity", Jan 1, 2024
Dear friends and colleagues -- We have not sent out a Bulletin since the first of this year! We have been working hard mostly right here in New Mexico, "America's nuclear weapons colony." Greg also spent a week in Washington in late January and early February hanging out with (mostly) nuclear weapons industry managers and government colleagues at the annual "Nuclear Deterrence Summit," hosted by Exchange Monitor Publications (thank you). Afterwards I joined esteemed colleagues Harvey Bennett (who was at the conference with me) and host Jim Wohlgemuth of Veterans for Peace, and also Jim Carrier (an insightful journalist), in a lively discussion regarding the conference (video, 1:23). 1. "The Year in Pits" As readers of these Bulletins understand, otherwise "early-to-need" pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory, (LANL) is necessary only to provide modern warheads for multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRVs) for the proposed "Sentinel" silo-based intercontinental missile system (simple overview here). Three weeks ago, we summarized the past year's developments in pit production in this letter to congressional colleagues (Jan 30, 2024). On January 31st, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby said (at the above-mentioned "Nuclear Deterrence Summit") that her agency plans to have the Savannah River Site's (SRS's) new pit factory -- a partially-built, never used, plutonium/uranium nuclear reactor fuel factory now in the early stages of re-construction -- making W93 pits by 2035. Construction at SRS is supposed to be complete by 2032, the same year that NNSA says re-tooling for pit production at LANL (via the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project, LAP4) will be complete. Meanwhile the roughly $140 billion Sentinel project has experienced a large cost overrun, triggering Pentagon review. I (Greg) believe even more expensive problems (with silo reconstruction) will be found when construction begins. The Sentinel project could shrink. • “Critical” Overrun Of Sentinel ICBM Program Demands Government Transparency, Mackenzie Knight, Federation of American Scientists, Feb 2, 2024 (These and other recent articles documenting problems with nuclear weapons modernization, along with some selected background, can be found on this new web page, which will evolve. Our intent is not to provide comprehensive background but rather a handy place to put references regarding evolving problems. All parts of the modernization program are outrunning previously estimated schedules and costs. It is possible that these elements will be downsized. Some could be terminated. So sad.) 2. Please join us this coming Tuesday Feb. 27 at 11 am Mountain Time for an on-line update on pit production issues This program will include discussion of some widely-held misconceptions bearing on pit production policy. Taken together, these misconceptions end up providing political support for: a) two pit factories instead of one, b) destabilizing new warheads, and as mentioned above, c) MIRVs for Sentinel. Zoom coordinates: Topic: Update & Discussion on Pit Production Issues, including Widely Held Misconceptions Save the date: on March 5, at the same time (11 am) we will discuss the dire influence of "Russophobia" on the anti-war and anti-militarism movement as well as on arms control and disarmament, and what we can do about it. We will have at least one guest discussant, as well as the usual suspects here. We hope to discuss a number of other topics in future Zoom meetings. Arms control and disarmament are currently moribund, not just because the U.S. is in a proxy war with Russia but also for other reasons. Please join us in these discussions we hope will contribute to revitalizing the U.S. peace movement. 3. Land of nuclear enchantment You can get the drift of our local work, which as we said has mostly occupied us this year, in these New-Mexico-oriented letters. (To receive them henceforth send a blank email here). Thanks to our superb organizer-researcher Bex Hampton and a lot of hours invested by all of us, we are now fortunate to have an awfully good group of mostly-younger adults working with us. One project we have been working on with them is to see if the City of Santa Fe would be willing to pass a non-binding resolution opposing plutonium warhead core ("pit") production. As of right now it appears that The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi is currently unwilling to oppose nuclear weapons production, contrary to strong precedent (resolutions 2003-64, 2005-39, 2006-104, and 2008-17; for more local resolutions see this page). Tens of billions in pork-barrel spending is involved, which tends to bedazzle politicians. Our current best estimate of full startup costs at LANL through FY2032 -- including only those line items the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) places in its "Plutonium Modernization" program -- is $20.9 billion (B). Of this, $6.8 B has already been spent. Updated NNSA estimates will appear during the week of March 11, as the President's Budget Request is gradually released. We are not dismayed the City's inaction, which was half-expected. I will tell you that when we met with Mayor Webber and his new Senior Advisor, a former Bechtel lobbyist, the Mayor pulled out the Executive Summary of "America's Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States," making his stance all too clear. This coming April, Mayor Webber is slated to welcome a group of nuclear weapons contractors in what amounts to a locally-oriented mini-"Deterrence Summit." So much for that Mayors for Peace Appeal (released TODAY!) and the Mayors for Peace Vision. (Santa Fe became of Member City of Mayors for Peace in 2005.) Sometimes people forget that everything happens someplace. Designing and building nuclear weapons happens only in a few locales. LANL is the best-funded nuclear weapons facility in the world. It is now in the process of adding the equivalent of an entire additional national laboratory. Five thousand new employees have been added in the past five years and more will come. LANL pits -- if any are eventually made -- are necessary to maintain the fiction that the U.S. can keep up in a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. Down the street, south of our office, there are more nuclear weapons than any other place on the planet. Some 42% of the current U.S. nuclear warhead effort, not counting the associated nuclear waste disposal, takes place in this state. Our proximity to these enterprises bestows outsized citizen power, privilege, and responsibility, and it also brings unique challenges and impacts. Our young people and traditional communities are having to face these challenges and impacts with very little help -- usually with the reverse of help -- from arms controllers elsewhere. We invite you to contact us -- there will be ways you can help, wherever you may be. One very simple, immediate, and important way to help is to endorse the "Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production" if you have not already done so. Then ask organizations you think might be interested to do so. If they have questions, have them contact us. Our door is open. Every day brings us new opportunities we won't have enough time or money enough to fully address. It is really an "embarrassment of riches" situation. Our local resistance and constructive programs are growing and evolving rapidly. We are learning as we go, building the road as we travel. "Ours is not a caravan of despair," said Rumi, and it's truly not. Join us and find out for yourself. 4. NATO's proxy war in Ukraine Please check out our Ukraine page if you are interested in current developments in that war, and in our relations with Russia. If you are reading this email, you ought to be interested! We believe working for "nuclear abolition" is an empty exercise without working for peace with Russia especially. The United States and NATO are already at war with Russia. We in the U.S. and Europe are making it worse every week -- worse for Ukraine that is, not Russia. It is crucial for the U.S. to NOT provide further aid to Ukraine, which will only kill more Ukrainians. Don't be deceived as so many have been since this war began two years ago: Russia will not lose this war. Ukraine has already lost. Please help stop the killing. We are happy to talk about this subject in any gathering -- and we hope you will join us on March 5. Please contact Greg, Steve, or Trish for more information. 5. Genocide in Gaza On this issue, we help as we can with protests, in solidarity with other organizations who are taking the lead. The U.S. has a positive obligation under both international and domestic law to halt all aid to Israel, which is using that aid for ongoing genocide. SPEAK UP, PLEASE. We urge you to do whatever you can to stop the genocide NOW, for the sake of Palestinians, for the sake of the entire region, for the sake of international law and global stability, and for the sake of the United States. If you want to get more involved in support of Palestine and peace, please contact Bex, or any of us. Greg, Trish, and Bex for the Los Alamos Study Group community |
|||
|
|
|||
|