|
|
|
For immediate release May 9, 2022 NNSA budget request for Los Alamos warhead "pit" project adds five proposed plutonium buildings, fresh rad waste cost overruns, adding $329 million to LANL pit costs Meanwhile, White House cuts $500 million from DOE's "requirements-based" budget for Savannah River Site pit project
Contact: Greg Mello, 505-265-1200 office, 505-577-8563 cell Albuquerque, NM -- The National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA's) latest congressional budget request reveals additional trouble for NNSA's program to reconstitute industrial production of plutonium cores ("pits") for nuclear weapons, the agency's largest endeavor. Not only are actual and expected costs rising, they are rising faster than previously predicted at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in particular. This press release does not include all the new information available, which we will have to release as time allows. LANL's liquid radioactive waste fiasco As of last month, neither of LANL's long-running projects to upgrade the lab's handling of liquid radioactive waste were actually operational, despite a quarter-century of design and construction. For one of these projects, the Transuranic Liquid Waste Treatment Facility (TLWF), a $79 million cost overrun was announced, along with yet another delay -- this time for three years. The long-running fiasco of LANL's liquid waste handling upgrades has been twice investigated in scathing reports by the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Inspector General (in 2013 and 2019) and was a factor in NNSA's decision to re-compete the overall LANL management contract. Our own 2019 investigative report, written by former Los Alamos Monitor editor Roger Snodgrass, reviews some of the shocking issues involved, omitting the earliest years (difficult to access electronically). In 2006, both projects -- then a single, unified project -- were expected to cost at most $104 million (p. 197). They will now cost a combined $361.4 million -- $126.3 million (p. 363) for the Radioactive Liquid Waste Treatment Facility (RLWTF), supposedly completed in 2018 but as of 4/21/22 "expected to come online in the near future," and $235.1 million (p. 205) for the TLWF, supposedly all but finished in FY2021 but apparently now to be completed only in fiscal year (FY) 2025. Of note, TLWF was described in 2013 as an "approximately 2,000 square foot" Hazard Category III building (p. WA-228). Pending completion of these projects LANL is being served by its 1963 radioactive liquid waste facilities, as upgraded and patched through the years. Those facilities, including RLWTF and TLWF, can be seen in the right-center foreground of this aerial photo of Technical Area (TA-) 50 at LANL, looking north across Material Disposal Area C. (If access is denied go to this page, scroll down to TA-50, the left-hand photo). NNSA suddenly requests five new plutonium-related buildings at LANL On top of this latest cost overrun, five new plutonium-related buildings are now said to be required -- exactly one per year for 5 years. Each of these unique buildings is expected to cost just shy of $49 million to construct -- or, if the first one is any guide, exactly $50 million with "Other Project Costs" included, the upper threshold of a new Trump-era initiative to streamline "medium-sized" non-nuclear construction (see pp. 563-567). Apparently, non-nuclear construction projects up to $20 million are already exempt from the requirement for congressional approval as a budget line item, and from the milestones and oversight required by DOE's main project management order (413.3B). By name and project number (each begins with the first fiscal year of construction funding), these buildings are:
Although all of these newly-announced projects explicitly serve plutonium modernization, none of them are included in NNSA's "Los Alamos Plutonium Modernization" budget line (see pp. 95, 100). Taken together, the new costs add $329 million to the expected costs of starting up pit production at LANL over the FY23-27 period. We have rechecked and reformatted those costs, as best we can understand them, in a new spreadsheet ("Warhead plutonium modernization spending, actual & proposed by site [, project, and year]," May 6, 2022, pdf format). As you can see, we identify reconstituting plutonium pit production with the Plutonium Modernization budget line and its supporting projects, as we believe is proper. Reconstituting plutonium pit production through the advent of 80 ppy production is at least a $30 billion and could be a $40 billion program, even without a new Hazard Category II plutonium facility at LANL. If you don't believe this analysis we urge you to examine it closely and convey your reasoning to us. Meanwhile, the White House cut $500 million for DOE's request from pit production at the Savannah River Site (SRS) On May 4, we learned from the Senate Armed Services hearing (most clearly at 1:36:50ff) that the White House cut $500 million from DOE's "requirements-based" draft budget request for pit production at SRS. On April 12, NNSA told congressional committees that "at least $250 million" in additional FY23 funding was needed to keep the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) on track to produce pits as soon as possible. Senior Pentagon officials apparently first heard of this cut to the draft budget in a May 3 Nuclear Weapons Council meeting (at 1:38:45), the day before the hearing. Background Since a suite of 2020 decisions by the Trump Administration, NNSA's pit production efforts have been divided between two main sites, LANL in New Mexico (where NNSA hopes to produce up to 30 pits per year [ppy] by 2026), and SRS in South Carolina (where NNSA hopes to produce at least 50 ppy as soon as possible after 2030). Since then, pit production costs have done nothing but rise. These costs have been revealed only in part, and only gradually:
At the same time as costs are increasing, NNSA's pit production schedule is in trouble. NNSA is now sure it cannot meet its statutory deadline of producing 80 ppy by 2030. NNSA also questions the likelihood of meeting interim production deadlines for 2024 and 2025.
While the LANL endeavor is visibly struggling as we have documented, the SRS project is still mostly in early design. We do not believe the pits LANL would be able to make as an actual production facility (as opposed to the "development and demonstration" facility Congress approved in 1996) would meaningfully contribute to U.S. stockpile requirements and NNSA's programs of record.
Again, if you don't believe this analysis we urge you to convey your reasoning to us, within applicable limits of classification. Comments Study Group Director Greg Mello: "The U.S. has no colorable reason, from any perspective, to spend an additional $10 billion for the few plutonium pits that LANL might be able to build in the 2020s. "The U.S., which should be turning all its attention to nuclear disarmament and not to the modernization and potential expansion of its nuclear arsenal, has plenty of pits for now. Even NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby said as much two weeks ago ["NNSA: early pit production a "hedge," not strictly necessary; is there a "pit gap?", May 3, 2022]. For further comments, references, and analysis see these pages. ***ENDS*** |
|||
|
|
|||
|
