October 2, 2020

Reminder: Citizens hearing on building a plutonium weapons factory at LANL and alternatives for the region and state: October 7, State Capitol, 1-6 pm

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Previous letter, 9/21/20: Citizens Hearing on the Environmental, Social, and Economic Impacts of Plutonium Pit Production and Its Alternatives: October 7, State Capitol, 1-6 pm
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What: Citizens Hearing on the Environmental, Social, and Economic Impacts of Plutonium Pit Production and Its Alternatives
    *This will be an outdoor, socially-distanced, masked, covid-safe event.*
When: Wednesday, October 7, 1 to 6 pm
Where: New Mexico State Capitol, East Side
Who: Elected and appointed officials (invited), concerned people like you and I
Why: There is no opportunity for public discussion, nor is any analysis planned, of the local, regional, statewide, or national impacts of the huge proposed LANL expansion, and LANL's new industrial plutonium mission(s)

Dear New Mexico activist leaders –

First, a very sincere "thank you" to all who have endorsed the Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production! If you haven't, please do! If you have, please talk and write to your friends and ask them to endorse as well!

Overall, there is little opposition so far to against building a nuclear weapons factory in Los Alamos. Many people and organizations are afraid to speak up in this simplest of ways, for one reason or another. Fear is contagious, but so is courage.

Lawmakers and national organizations assume New Mexico wants this factory because of this silence and because our congressional delegation has worked to get it.

The Los Alamos bomb factory does not require big new nuclear buildings, at least at first. (It would, soon enough.) So far, nuclear construction to create the new factory complex has been largely confined to interior spaces. It is all rather incremental and undramatic -- so far.

I say this because many people ask whether construction has already started. It has, but not in the major ways that are planned. The transformation of Los Alamos National Laboratory has begun but it is not far advanced.

The point is, it can be stopped, as it has been before.

What is dramatic is the budget: about $14 billion to build, equip, hire staff, and start running this "little" factory over the 2019 through 2030 period. (For this and more see slide 29 here.)

As you can see at the link this leads to a cost of roughly $60 million for each of roughly 233 plutonium warhead cores ("pits") to be made over this period.

Whether this factory can get going is the main hurdle right now in what has just been revealed to be a $111* billion program to rebuild the U.S. ICBM fleet. (*LANL's high costs -- which by the way we were able to brief to a number of individuals in Congress, NNSA, and the White House yesterday on Zoom -- would more than double the cost of the warheads for this missile. This cost revelation is not included in the $111 billion.)

Maintaining the new missiles over their lifetime would add another $167 billion, pushing the "lifetime" cost of the new doomsday missiles to somewhere north of a quarter-trillion dollars. ("Lifetime" is a poor word here. "Deathtime" is closer.)

Thus the cost of one pit from the new factory which so many applaud (and so many, many more do their best to ignore) is more than 100 times what a roughly 3 kg pit would weigh in solid gold.

This cost is enough to hire 1,000 entry-level teachers and assistants for a year, or 1,000 carpenters and roofers at a living wage for a year, to make our homes more efficient and slash our energy usage.

It's enough to build thousands of residential solar systems. The $14 billion to start and run this factory through 2030 is enough for a million residential solar installations.

These are just the financial costs. What will be the costs in terms of despair among our youth? In terms of environmental desolation? What about the traffic? Where will all the new plutonium workers live?

What about the water?

Last year, only 4% (50 drums) of the nuclear waste shipped to WIPP from LANL was old "legacy" waste. The nuclear weapons program shipped 1,200 drums' worth -- 96%. And that is before pit production even gets started. 

The U.S., and more so this state, face a continuing wave of bankruptcies, in addition to the national governance and electoral crises that mesmerize so many. We are facing the collapse of our climate, our economy, and our society.

So is building more nuclear weapons the best priority for this country right now?

These new pits from LANL are NOT for making existing warheads safer. That's what so many hypnotized souls in Washington are telling themselves these days. That "safety" goal could be accomplished with the hundreds of spare warheads -- very modern warheads, built at the very end of the Cold War and tailor-made for ICBMs -- that the US has in storage right now, and by requiring safer handling procedures.

The main difference between such an excellent common-sense plan and the monstrosity now underway is that 540 ICBM warheads (for 400 deployed missiles) are not deemed enough. The nutjobs who make policy want to have the option of putting three warheads on every missile if tensions with Russia rise high enough. This, they imagine, will frighten Russia by its very madness. It's for this that the Los Alamos pit factory is being built -- not so much safer nuclear weapons (an oxymoron, we know) to put on hair-trigger alert (as ICBM weapons always are), as the ability to threaten with MORE such weapons.

That, and to bring billions of dollars into the NNSA warhead complex, lest schools and solar installations and job training get that money instead. Can't have that.

I am sure you understand that only ONE of these pits is needed to incinerate a whole city.

I think you also understand that a small fraction of the U.S. and Russian arsenals is enough to wipe out most higher life forms on the planet. With present U.S. priorities we won't need a nuclear war to do that of course. Climate collapse will do that. 

What are YOUR questions about all this? Are you down with these "excellent" priorities for the U.S. of A.?

If you aren't, what are you doing about it?

Please help us bring more people on October 7. You know how to do this. We really need your help. We have plenty of room to spread out so don't be shy -- but do wear a mask.

We will record your questions and concerns and deliver them to our congressional delegation, the Governor, and other decisionmakers. We will invite them to come but it definitely wouldn't hurt if you did so as well.

We are looking forward to seeing you, many of whom we have not seen for months!

Very best wishes to all,

Greg, Trish, and Lydia for the Los Alamos Study Group