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For immediate release April 19, 2021
12.5 mile 115 kV line would cross the relatively-unspoiled Caja del Rio portion of the Santa Fe National Forest, then the scenic Rio Grande canyon south of White Rock, NM, largely parallel to existing 115 kV line
Rising LANL electricity demand, mostly driven by as-yet-unapproved multibillion-dollar programs, is expected to double over coming decade
Adding wire to either or both of two existing transmission lines rejected as insufficiently redundant during construction
Planned on-site solar and gas turbine also insufficient; LANL risk of missing DOE efficiency targets "high"
Project is part of $13 billion capital investment to dramatically expand LANL, add plutonium warhead core ("pit") production mission
No overall plans available to affected governments, tribes; no overall environmental analysis planned
Largest capital project in NM history proceeds in near-total secrecy; local, state, tribal governments uninformed, silent
Contact: Greg Mello, 505-577-8563 cell
Permalink * Prior press releases
Albuquerque, NM -- Today the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) subsidiary have published a formal Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an environmental assessment (EA) to upgrade LANL's electrical power capacity.
NNSA proposes to construct a new 115 kiloVolt (kV) transmission line and upgrade LANL’s existing electrical infrastructure via a congressional line-item project called the LANL "Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade" (EPCU), which would start in fiscal year (FY) 2023, conclude some time after FY 2025, and cost $300 million (M). (See pp. 354, 365, & 370; further details are expected in the FY2022 NNSA congressional budget request, expected May 3, then available here.)
DOE/NNSA and the U.S. Forest Service are co-leading this EA. The project also requires amending the Santa Fe National Forest 1987 Land and Resource Management Plan.
The agencies are requesting comments from the public, governments, and tribes over the next 30 days regarding the scope of the EA. A virtual scoping meeting is to be held on May 6, 2021, at https://tinyurl.com/EPCUEA from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. MDT. Written comments can be sent to EPCUEA@NNSA.DOE.GOV or submitted at https://www.lanl.gov/environment/epcu/index.shtml] no later than May 21, 2021.
As LANL's "Fiscal Year 2021 Site Sustainability Plan" (SSP) states (p. 12), LANL aims to double its electrical energy use over the coming decade. The principle drivers of this increased demand are primarily ambitious, not-yet-approved high-performance computing projects, and secondarily the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) and its perennially-proposed upgrade MaRIE ("Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes"). Both projects primarily serve LANL's expanding nuclear weapons program and are designed to provide ever-more-accurate predictive capability for nuclear weapons design and performance. Both projects will also increase LANL's consumption of water, for cooling.
According to the SSP, the huge plutonium pit production program is not seen as a major driver of increased electrical demand.
Projected sources for LANL's increased electrical power over the coming decade are found in the SSP (p. 13) and in a February 16 "Carbon Free Power Project" update provided to the Los Alamos County Council.
LANL is "pursuing" a 10 megawatt (MW) solar array on-site (p. 9; 2019 EA, Finding of No Significant Impact), which would provide 4% of LANL's electrical needs by 2031 (p. 13), as well as a new 25 MW gas turbine generating plant (cf. slide 16) in the main LANL technical area (TA-3), expected to come on-line in 2024.
As we noted in February (LANL releases 2021 "Site Sustainability Plan" for "rapidly changing and growing mission"), notwithstanding -- or because of -- this project LANL will fail to meet DOE goals for energy efficiency. DOE goals for water use will also not be met. Currently more than half of LANL's electricity is sourced to coal-fired generation sources. There are no clear commitments to more renewable forms of imported energy, only to power purchase agreements subject to a number of vague criteria (including "innovative" a euphemism for small modular nuclear reactors, SMRs). LANL currently consumes 80% of the energy supplied to the Los Alamos Power Pool (LAPP), which is contracted to receive nuclear power generated by a cluster of SMRs to be built in Idaho.
LANL will merely "consider" (p. 10) conducting a climate change vulnerability assessment in response to explicit DOE guidance and is at "high risk" of not responding to DOE climate guidance at all.
As the NOI states, the option of reconductoring existing power lines -- under consideration for many years -- without building a new one has been rejected as not providing sufficient redundancy during construction (to protect against a possible terrorist attack, for example).
The Caja del Rio portion of the Santa Fe National Forest is a relatively unspoiled area largely free of structures, incised by deep canyons near White Rock Canyon, a notably scenic locale (Albuquerque Journal photo from the ground; Los Alamos Study Group aerial photo).
The proposed project is part of a $13 billion construction program proposed for LANL for the present decade ("LANL officials detail potential building boom," Albuquerque Journal, Aug 9, 2019).
These plans comprise the largest capital project in the history of New Mexico in dollar terms (slide 21), rivaling the cost of all three interstate highways put together. They far exceed the total cost of the Manhattan Project in New Mexico, in constant dollars.
No comprehensive information regarding the future of LANL is available to the public, to local and state governments, or to the immediately affected tribes. We have obtained a few dated, incomplete elements of the missing context from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and other sources, including: the LANL Comprehensive Site Plan (slides, redacted); LANL Future Land Acquisition & Development (slides, redacted); LANL Vision for Future Campus (slides, redacted); LANL Future Campus, video, Aug 27, 2019.
Study Group director Greg Mello: "This is a poorly-justified project, one we strenuously oppose. The outrageous electrical capacity LANL says it needs -- double what it has now, which is in turn double what LANL used a few years ago -- is premised on as-yet-unapproved programs and projects which are themselves poorly justified.
"Where does LANL get most of its electricity? From coal-fired power plants. In fact LANL is the largest single creator of greenhouse gases in a wide region.
"Moreover there are better alternatives to this new power line, even if all this climate-killing electricity were actually needed. NNSA could increase its solar plans for LANL beyond the token level, and add electrical storage. LANL is a DOE site, after all. One or both of LANL's existing power lines could be reconductored without building a new one, an option which would cost less and create less environmental impact. LANL could decrease its electricity demand per square foot of building and per staff member, as DOE guidelines suggest.
"Above all, responsible adults need to rein in NNSA's and LANL's entitled attitudes and grandiose ambitions. The U.S. does not need new nuclear weapons. To make them, to "innovate," LANL consumes like there's no tomorrow, and the thousands of additional employees LANL wants to hire will consume scarce resources such as water, as well.
"This project is just one small facet of the transformative plans being hatched in secret by the New Mexico congressional delegation, NNSA, Triad, and others to increase the role of nuclear weapons in northern New Mexico. These plans are far more ambitious and transformative than most people imagine. Local governments are being kept in the dark, as are citizens. Our future is being decided by national security bureaucrats and syndicates of private interests, which are to be rubber-stamped by elected local officials at the appointed times.
"When will any local government or tribe see and discuss LANL's site plan, which involves all of them? When will NNSA's plans for pit production at LANL -- the mission of the former Rocky Flats Plant -- become available? We know that NNSA says it will employ as many people in pit production as worked at Rocky Flats until that plant's last decade. This is not some just-right Goldilocks effort. It's an all-out campaign to make an old, small facility designed for R&D only function as a full-up nuclear factory. Pit production is the biggest, but not the only, LANL growth sector. This electrical upgrade highlights two others, which are even bigger energy hogs.
"Where will the water come from? Let's be frank. Santa Fe and the Espanola Basin, and the Rio Grande, do not have enough water to support growth -- period.
"How can LANL's nuclear weapons mission, even at its past scale, let alone at the bloated scale now imagined, be reconciled with our moral and legal obligations, or with a climate emergency that threatens our survival, or our obligations to the vulnerable, or with our exploding deficit spending? What is proposed, once the PR gloss is scrubbed off, is ruinous. It hurts us at every level -- economically, culturally, politically, and morally."
***ENDS***
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