LANL has not met pit production acquisition and operational milestones and requirements in recent years -- or for that matter, ever. LANL was under a statutory obligation to make at least 10 "war reserve" (WR) pits (i.e. pits of approved quality for the U.S. arsenal) in FY2024. LANL produced one. LANL is obligated by statute to produce 20 WR pits this fiscal year, i.e. by Sept. 30, 2025, which the proposed new law would change to "10." 

It is not publicly known how many WR pits LANL has made this year so far, if any. 

On May 7, Acting National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Theresa Robbins stated in testimony that NNSA's pit production goals for FY2026 (as against a requirement of 30 WR pits) included only conducting "engineering evaluations for Los Alamos pit production in concert with increased equipment purchases, installation activities, and removal of legacy equipment in pursuit of rate production." Not, in other words, actual pit production, let alone at the required level of 30 pits per year (ppy). There was no further discussion of pit production in open session in that hearing.

By way of overall background, the (re-)acquisition of pit production capability is by far the largest program in NNSA history and one of the largest capital projects underway in the United States ("Gigantic Department of Energy program to make plutonium warhead cores ("pits") has overshot its budget and is being re-evaluated; NNSA has no analysis of alternatives supportive of its present pit plans...", Jul 12, 2025). Including program costs during the acquisition phase, the total cost of acquiring pit production capability can be estimated to be $49-58 billion (B), with $25-27 B of this at LANL, $22-29 B at the Savannah River Site (SRS), and $2 B at three other NNSA sites (Ibid). 

The United States cannot make entirely new nuclear weapons without new pits, which the U.S. has not been able to make since July of 1989 -- in substantial part due to citizen opposition. All U.S. nuclear warheads and bombs produced since then, and all warheads and bombs planned to be produced through at least the early 2030s, have used and will use recycled pits. In fact every new warhead to be produced in the 2030s will use recycled pits, either for the entire production run (the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile warhead) or for part of it (the W87-1 and W93 warheads for land-based missiles and submarine-launched missiles, respectively). For the W87-1, see "Multi-year delays in plutonium "pit" production at Los Alamos now require the use of recycled pits for some new warheads The purpose of the Los Alamos facility, expected to cost more than $22 billion when all costs are tallied, was to avoid recycling pits," Jul 2, 2025. For the W93, see NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby remarks at Strategic Weapons, 21st Century Symposium, Apr 18, 2024). 

Should this provision (Section 3112) of the Senate-proposed NDAA become law, LANL would not only be required to produce "at least 30" WR pits (in FY2027, instead of FY2026 as now; see 50 USC Sec. 2538a), but also no fewer than 50 WR pits in FY2029 and no fewer than 80 WR pits in 2032. 

The same section of the bill would also clarify that LANL must produce at least 30 WR ppy when in full production, and the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) at SRS in South Carolina must produce at least 50 WR ppy when in full production. 

Up to now, the pit production role of SRPPF has been implied by the statutory requirement to produce at least 80 WR ppy, given the size and age limitations of LANL's facilities, but SRPPF's role has not been not explicit in statute. LANL's required role has been explicit since 2014 and in detail since 2018.

This provision, which cements SRPPF's pit production role, is we believe also present in the version of the FY2026 NDAA (H.R. 3838) reported out by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) on July 15. In the Chairman's Mark it can be seen at Sec. 3111 (electronic page 269). An amendment to change pit production requirement subsequently offered by Rep. Garamendi of California failed. The final bill as reported out of the HASC is not yet available. As of this writing we are all but certain that this provision is present in the HASC version of the NDAA as well as the Senate version, which means final passage is all but assured.  

The proposed new production deadlines prior to FY2035 apply to LANL pit production only, because the NNSA hopes to complete construction at SRPPF only by FY2032 at the earliest (that is the "CD-4" milestone; see p. 203 here) and to put the facility into initial production only by FY2035 (p. 3 here), at the earliest. The SASC certainly understands this. 

The new deadlines still appear to be ambitious, in that they do not fully jibe with the most optimistic construction schedules at LANL. In a nutshell, NNSA hopes to complete preparations for the "reliable" production of at least 30 WR ppy using a single production shift only by the end of FY2032 (the "30R" subproject of the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project, "LAP4"; see p. 170 here). NNSA hopes to increase production beyond this level by utilizing 24/7 production operations by FY2034, as enabled by the "PEI2" subproject, DOE number 04-D-125-06 (pp. 277, 280,  and 286), as well as by other projects. 

There have been many iterations of pit production requirements promulgated by the Executive Branch (for some of them up to about a decade ago, see "History of Statements on Pit Production Capacity," an unpublished summary prepared by the Congressional Research Service provided to us in 2014). In their full scope, these requirements are classified. Congress has also created statutory requirements, which may (or may not) be changed this year along the lines proposed by the SASC. 

To understand phrases like "at least 30" and "at least 80" ppy, a little more background is needed. 

In 2017, NNSA provided an unclassified summary of the classified 2017 Program Requirements Document (PRD) for NNSA's plutonium missions including pit production (pp. 5-6). From this PRD, NNSA developed detailed functional and process level requirements to help guide its decision about how and where to make pits. 

For NNSA, the ability to produce "at least" or "no fewer than" 30, 50, or 80 ppy means that these quantities will be achieved in 9 out of 10 production years, i.e. with 90% confidence in a given year (p. 11). This is called "high confidence" or "reliable" production (as in "30 reliable" at LANL, enabled by the "30R" subproject within LAP4). The Senate bill uses this same "no fewer" language, and that -- 90% confidence in a given year -- is what this means in practical terms, since a production facility designed to never fail to produce plutonium pits at X level would be prohibitively expensive if achievable at all. 

To have this "high confidence" and "reliability," the average production levels must be higher than the "30," "50," or "80" ppy usually mentioned. 

In 2017, NNSA's production model estimated (p. 13) average production as follows for these levels: 

"At least" production (90% confidence)	30 ppy	50 ppy	80 ppy
Average production	41 ppy	84 ppy	103 ppy

It will be immediately apparent that "at least 30" ppy at LANL plus "at least 50" ppy at SRPPF (as the proposed statute requires) would together produce a modeled average of about 125 ppy, as opposed to a mere 103 ppy if one site were to produce all the pits. 

In 2017, NNSA rejected pit production at two sites (pp. 45-46). In 2018, six months later, NNSA, then under new management, embraced it. One of the effects of this change was to increase projected average pit production by 21%, from 103 to 125 ppy. 

The number of pieces of production equipment involved would however jump by 51%. This huge increase in equipment (and therefore also space requirements) over single-site production has had dramatic cost implications. 

In 2017, LANL's "Plutonium Sustainment" program aspired to produce almost 30 ppy on average (p. 64). This is 30 ppy with about 50% confidence (what NNSA calls "moderate confidence," p. 175), also called "30 base" today, which is to be enabled by the "30B" subproject of LAP4, p. 173). 

In January 2023, the Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledged that the "30B" subproject was going to be delayed 4 years, to 2030 (Installation of "Base" Capability to Produce 30 Plutonium Warhead Cores ("Pits") at Los Alamos To Be Delayed 4 Years, to 2030, press release, Feb 3, 2023; Approval of Critical Decision-2/3 for Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project 30 Base Equipment Installation Subproject and Approval of Project Execution Plan, DOE memo, Jan 19, 2023). 

This major delay, which would incur billions of dollars in additional operating ("program") costs as well as construction ("project") costs, has had a major effect on NNSA's pit production program, certainly at Los Alamos and we believe also at SRPPF. 

One result of this delay was the creation of a new "strategy" within the "30B" subproject at LANL, called the "30 Diamond (30D) Strategy." (The "diamonds" in question refer to the literal diamond-shaped stamp that goes on each pit, when the pit is certified as WR.) 

In NNSA's words, "[t]he 30D Strategy is an execution strategy that optimally sequences both programmatic and project activities to achieve the 30 pit per year (PPY) capacity at LANL as soon as possible" (p. 168, emphasis added). This is not pit production per se, but "[c]omplete turnover to operations and equipment hot testing (as applicable) of the minimum equipment necessary for 30 war reserve PPY." (p. 175). 

The 30 Diamond strategy has apparently interrupted the optimum sequencing of activities to reach 30 WR ppy ("30 Diamonds, WHY" LANL, Dec. 2022): "Many people have lacked confidence in LANLs role in producing 30 pits; LANL has to produce...When a 30 Diamond Campaign is started the priority shifts to the campaign and Pit Production will be second priority; We currently have about 100 projects going on and these will continue as planned unless the resources are taken by 30 Diamonds" (emphasis added). 

How is this working? On May 7 of this year, Acting Administrator Robbins said: 

She did not say LANL would produce pits in 2028, or that LANL would acquire the capability to produce pits with any confidence in that year, whether 50% ("moderate") or 90% ("high") confidence. 

Expanding on a theme introduced above, when Dr. Charles Verdon, then Deputy NNSA Administrator for Defense Programs, was asked by Senator Angus King on May 19, 2021 why a two-site production strategy was preferred over single-site production, Dr. Verdon said, in so many words, that to provide comparable capacity and resilience at a single site, that production plant would have to have a capacity of about 140 ppy (and which would, he said, using then-current estimates, cost twice as much as the two-site strategy proposed). Presumably, this production rate included some assumption about downtime. Verdon's "140 ppy" is equivalent to the above "125 ppy" with the equivalent of about one year in ten lost to outages. 

This Senate bill would in effect codify U.S. pit production requirements at about 125 ppy. 

Here are the current and proposed new pit production requirements compared: 

	FY2024	FY2025	FY2026	FY2027	FY2029	FY2030	FY2032
Existing law (50 USC Sec. 2538a)	≥10*	≥20*	≥30*			≥80**
Proposed by Senate (S. 2296, Sec. 3112)		≥10*	≥20*	≥30*	≥50*		≥80 & after***

*    By implication, LANL only
**  When passed, this was to be the combined production of LANL and SRPPF. Now Congress knows that SRPPF will still be under construction until at least 2032.  

***By implication, LANL only until at least FY2035

Up to now, LANL has been required only to produce "at least 30" ppy (i.e. roughly 41 ppy on average) and to be able to "surge" up to 80 ppy temporarily. The new law would require LANL to be able to produce no fewer than 80 ppy until SRPPF is in full or nearly-full production, i.e. produce roughly 103 ppy on average for several years, per the above table. 

Whether LANL can produce pits reliably at any rate is unknown. As Table 1 ("DOE/NNSA War Reserve pit production commitments and results at LANL") shows, reliable pit production at LANL has always been roughly 7 years in the future since the first schedule estimates were made in 1996. Six different production strategies can be identified (Table 2: Sketch of DOE/NNSA pit production strategies at LANL, 1987-present). 

Los Alamos Study Group comments

Many of our comments are related to the exploding costs of pit production observed at both sites, and the related exponential rise of NNSA funding requirements as a whole. Look for them next week. For now:

"Pit production is unnecessary at this time, except as a demonstration of capability, and as training, both of which could be done without the LAP4 project and all the other projects at LANL being pursued to turn LANL into a factory. Thousands of people are being hired, and billions of dollars expended, unnecessarily. 

"LANL pit production is also "necessary" to build "bonus" warheads for the Sentinel ICBM, which would allow placing multiple warheads on each missile. There is no strategic justification for this, and the U.S. does not deploy any existing ICBMs with multiple warheads. 

"The real reasons for LANL pit production have to do with greed for pork-barrel spending in New Mexico, with providing Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with a new warhead to work on and thus continuing its robust funding and employment, and providing extra work for the NNSA warhead complex as a whole. DoD already has enough modern, accurate, long-lived warheads that are about as safe to handle as any nuclear warhead can be, for all its proposed Sentinel missiles. LANL pit production is pure make-work. 

"Efforts to halt acquisition of pit production at the Savannah River Site have failed. No congress or president will put all the plutonium eggs in LANL's small, old, basket. 

"With or without the proposed new law, LANL faces some big milestones. There's a long list, and there's a lot of headwinds. But through 2028, I don't see any commitments to actually make pits. None at all. Billions and billions of dollars and no pits. This is very embarrassing, isn't it? Congress can pass whatever law they want, but statutory requirements do not magically create capabilities on the ground."