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April 10, 2024 Bulletin 342: Russophobia, the Ukraine war, and nuclear weapons," panel discussion in Santa Fe Tuesday April 16, 6 pm / Pit production: myths and contradictions Permalink for this bulletin (please forward). Previously: Bulletin 341: (03/04/2024) Pit seminar materials available; Russophobia seminar postponed; big jump in FY24 warhead spending as arms race takes hold; Ukraine losing war sparking panic in West
Dear friends and colleagues -- 1. "Russophobia, the Ukraine war, and nuclear weapons," panel discussion in Santa Fe Tuesday April 16, 6 pm, St. John's United Methodist Church, 1200 Old Pecos Trail (map) (About 900 of you got a longer version of this event announcement in a letter to local activists and supporters. Take this as a reminder!) Please join Peter Kuznick, Steven Starr, and myself (Greg Mello) to discuss the dangerous phenomenon of "Russophobia" in the West, in the context of the potentially widening war in Ukraine, with its attendant nuclear dangers. Dr. Kuznick is a Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. He is the coauthor with Oliver Stone of the 12-part documentary and companion book, "The Untold History of the United States" and is in high demand around the world as an analyst of current events. Steve is medical scientist and former department chair at the University of Missouri; he was a Senior Scientist with Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). He is a board member of the Study Group. All three of us have been following developments in U.S.-Russian relations on a daily basis. We are frequently appalled by the ignorance and hateful attitudes we see around us, not just in government propaganda and the mainstream media but also in the course of our work for arms control and disarmament. We at the Study Group have conducted multiple teach-ins and public discussions on the Ukraine war since it began in 2014. We maintain a news and analysis page updated more or less daily regarding this war, with occasional commentary. In March 2022 our prescriptions for peace in Ukraine were, with the encouragement of the late John Pilger, published here and in Europe (in Zeit-Fragen). Of local interest, Greg's views were highlighted and criticized in a prominent local news article early last year ("Anti-nuclear activist opposes helping Ukraine, encourages peace," Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb 5, 2023). Failure to heed the chorus of powerful warnings coming from many highly-experienced people, and also from us, has cost hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives, and tens of thousands of Russian lives. We urge you to frequent our Ukraine war page and its most-used sources, and recommend it to others. The gravity of the confrontation between the U.S. and its allies and Russia is intensifying week by week and must be addressed thoroughly and forthrightly, if for no other reason than for our own survival. If you live in the area please come, and tell your friends! There is plenty of room. We will take questions from the audience. We will not stream this event although it will be available for viewing later. 2. Pit production: myths and contradictions On Tuesday 2/27/24 we provided an on-line update and discussion on plutonium warhead core ("pit") production, which included debunking some of the misconceptions plaguing public discourse on pits (slides, video). In particular, we looked at a few (though far from all) of the egregious errors and contradictions in the Asplund and von Hippel article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists last year, as well as some important mistakes in the Scientific American. It's exasperating when the arms control community promotes the accelerated production of new-design warheads, in this case for the new "Sentinel" silo-based missile. ("With friends like these...") The additional warheads enabled by early (i.e. Los Alamos) production will allow uploading a) additional, b) highly-accurate, long-life warheads on the Sentinel system (up to two more warheads per missile), an aggressive option currently unavailable -- with or without New START. At present, about half the Minuteman fleet could be deployed with up to three warheads per missile but these are older, much less accurate, W78 warheads. Both the existing W87-0 warheads, which will be retained and deployed, and the new W87-1 warheads (to be made solely with LANL pits), will be equipped with "smart" fuzes* that greatly increase the probability of hard target destruction. The higher accuracy allows for more hard targets to be addressed with a high probability of their destruction. Many more targets. (*The article cited is derivative from Postol's and George Lewis's much earlier work, "The Capabilities of Trident against Russian Silo-Based Missiles: Implications for START III and Beyond", Lewis & Postol, MIT, Feb 2, 1998). "Many more targets" is not something we at the Los Alamos Study Group want. This morning Rep. Garamendi, a highly conscientious and respectable legislator with whom we have met many times, testified in the House Appropriations on the Sentinel system and pit production (video, 9:39, no sound first few seconds, be patient). We recommend watching it. His testimony was not logical and was to a degree contradictory if taken at face value, but nothing about nuclear weapons is logical. We agree with many of his big-picture views and are sympathetic to his political situation. He does not think it is necessary to make 80 pits per year, although he did not explain why he thought that. That was prudent, because he would not be able to defend his views without introducing either unacceptable political assumptions or nonfactual technical assumptions, or both. For our part, we don't think it is necessary to make any pits at all. In its recent unclassified report on its classified Nov. 2023 review of pit aging and pit lifetime (see below), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was silent -- i.e. stood pat -- on the topic of how large pit production capacity should be, saying only that "[i]n addition to plutonium aging research, NNSA officials and independent evaluations identified the need to continue to pursue plutonium pit production to mitigate risks associated with plutonium aging" (p. 4). NNSA has a ten-year program to better understand pit aging (which will cost billions of dollars, naturally). In any case Rep. Garamendi, like so many others, does not understand that LANL's main plutonium facility, as well as various supporting facilities at LANL, are elderly and will need replacement in the not-too-distant future. In addition, they are too small to maintain any stockpile foreseen at the present time, are crowded with other missions, and are unable to meet modern safety standards. NNSA expects that with increased maintenance, LANL's main plutonium facility could last until 2045 ("Risks for Sustainment of PF-4 at LANL, Report to Congress," Nov 2020, obtained by FOIA). What then? A new pit production facility at LANL? Evidently, in the eyes of those who imagine all U.S. pit production can be shoehorned into LANL. But NNSA already has a pit production facility underway, at the Savannah River Site (SRS), the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPFF). That facility will be able to handle whatever production is needed, by itself. Why then build a temporary, lesser production capability at LANL, the completion of which is still 8 years and an additional $15 billion away? Oh silly me -- how could I forget? Sentinel. Rep. Garamendi, following in the footsteps of von Hippel and others, is greenlighting the warheads he says he does not want, for the missile he definitely does not want, while also in effect supporting the construction of two pit factories, at extravagant cost. Sole reliance on inadequate, old, problematic LANL facilities is an option that has been rejected by everybody in two administrations and also every key congressional committee for several years running. Rep. Garamendi is dead right that only one pit factory is needed, but he has picked the wrong one. If LANL is going to be a pit factory, two are going to be needed as long as LANL's production holds out. What is really at the bottom of all these contradictions? Rep. Garamendi is in our opinion trying to be a hawk and a dove at the same time. Most of his "progressive" colleagues do the same. As regards pit production NNSA's most expensive program, partisan politics play a large role. Most of the arms control community is composed of Democratic Party surrogates. Also, the arms control community has an unbroken record of supporting the nuclear labs, going all the way back to JFK's successful strategy for Partial Test Ban Treaty ratification. Consolidation of nuclear weapons work in New Mexico (or if you prefer, keeping nuclear weapons work out of South Carolina, which comes to the same thing) has been a consistent goal of many people as well. The arms control community is actually quite hawkish and would have a hard time providing leadership in postponing industrial pit production. It has never advocated for doing so. The contradictions voiced by Rep. Garamendi are traceable to contradictions in the wider arms control community, which does not want to risk its access to funding by coloring outside the lines established for it. We will return to the political conundrum so well -- and in my opinion, so honestly -- expressed by Rep. Garamendi in our April 16 panel discussion and in coming Bulletins. In advance, and in short, the plain-as-day "elephant in the room" for nuclear arms control is U.S.-Russian relations. Returning to the 2/27/24 seminar, we largely based the update portion on "The Year in Pits, LASG letter to Congressional Colleagues," Jan 30, 2024. Our own proposed policies can be found in the "featured" materials on our pit web page, e.g. "Toward a viable plutonium pit production plan: part 2," Jun 9, 2023. We have created a nearly-complete library of pertinent references there as well. Since then, no doubt in response to concerns within government over the 6-year schedule delay at LANL from the original (and statutorily-required) "2026," to September 2032 -- LANL has been pushing a narrative that it might be able to make 30 pits by 2028. “We’re shooting for 2028,” [LANL Director Thom] Mason said. “There is a mission driver. We need to start making pits for this Sentinel ICBM” ("LANL's prototype plutonium bomb core passes key tests," Santa Fe New Mexican, with comment, Feb 19, 2024). Does Rep. Garamendi, and does Frank von Hippel, agree with this goal? So far they absolutely do. We pray they will have a change of heart. We need a pause in this country to regain our sanity, as regards not just nuclear weapons but also our highly-aggressive foreign policy overall. U.S. pits are not in danger of "aging out," as all parties agree. We need to take this arms control opportunity, which was purchased at great personal cost by the workers of Rocky Flats. So far, NNSA is not repeating this "2028" narrative." In February 2023, fourteen months ago, when I (Greg) asked NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby about the schedule for pit production, she said (54:28 to 56:19) that production of 30 ppy might occur by 2030, but these pits were unlikely to be all certifiable. Reliable production of 30 War Reserve (WR) pits per year (ppy), she said, requires completion of the "30 Reliable" subproject, currently slated for September 2032 (p. 232). In February of this year, when I asked Administrator Hruby the same question, she failed to answer. NNSA, DoD, and Congress are not going to defund SRPFF no matter what, including no matter who is elected president. NNSA has no other option for an adequate, enduring pit production facility, which will in any case take many years to construct. Even with the possible huge cost increases NNSA is warning about, SRPPF is still NNSA's fastest and cheapest option. Choosing to not construct an enduring pit facility, which has to begin now to be in production any time prior to the 2040s, is tantamount to choosing unilateral nuclear disarmament. As much as some of us would be fine with that, that will not be the choice of the U.S. government. The folks in the arms control community who keep asking for pit production at LANL are doing nothing of value. Quite the contrary. They are instead merely endorsing the Sentinel warhead along with every other hawk in government. Much to my chagrin, we have not written up all the new information that became available in the Fiscal Year 2025 congressional budget request, or prepared a range of up-to-date cost estimates. That's coming next week. A quick initial review of the budget request can be found here: "Huge increase in nuclear warhead funding approved for this year; more requested for next year," Mar 12, 2024. 3. Related: GAO on NNSA's research plan for plutonium and pit aging In "Nuclear Weapons: Information on the National Nuclear Security Administration's Research Plan for Plutonium and Pit Aging," (GAO-24-106740, 2/29/24), GAO provides an unclassified summary of GAO's classified review of the current age and estimated lifetimes of pits in the stockpile, the impact that these lifetime estimates may have on stockpile management and pit production, and related matters. GAO tells us that NNSA's research program on pit aging is expected to cost about $1 billion over 10 years, exclusive of capital costs. Exchange Monitor notes that just two of the needed machines and supporting infrastructure are expected to cost $2.6 billion ("Plutonium pit-aging studies will cost NNSA at least $1B, not counting equipment, GAO says," Mar 1, 2024). As noted above, GAO concludes by noting "NNSA officials and independent evaluations identified the need to continue to pursue plutonium pit production to mitigate risks associated with plutonium aging." This is similar to a conclusion of the JASON advisory group in 2019: "Finally, we urge that pit manufacturing be re-established as expeditiously as possible in parallel with the focused program to understand Pu aging, to mitigate against potential risks posed by Pu aging on the stockpile." Thank you for your attention, Greg |
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