Albuquerque, NM -- On Wednesday evening of this week, citizens and students will again request City of Santa Fe to renew its opposition to manufacturing nuclear weapons cores ("pits") in Los Alamos, and the further expansion of LANL facilities in Santa Fe, by considering this draft resolution (link goes to a version that includes references as well as links to past resolutions). This will happen in the 7 pm timeframe, as "Petitions from the Floor."

We have been requesting consideration of a such a resolution for months now and have met with some councilors to discuss it. 

We captured the overall situation as best we could in the following appeal to the New Mexico part of our mailing list yesterday ("Please come to the Santa Fe City Council this Wednesday 9/30 at 6:30 pm!"). 

We put some of the relevant background in that letter, which we urge you to peruse. 

The acquisition of pit production is a $30 billion program at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and is the main impetus for LANL's recent rapid growth. This program is twenty times the size of the Manhattan Project in New Mexico was, in constant dollars. It is so financially large, and has experienced such enormous cost and schedule overruns, that it beggars all our imaginations. It's hard to focus on it. As a result, despite being the highest priority project in the history of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), almost nobody wants to talk about it. For various reasons it seems to be "radioactive." So it proceeds almost in silence, despite being the largest capital project in the history of New Mexico, with the exception of the Project Jupiter, which is thankfully stumbling. 

We do not know how many people will come tomorrow evening. Certainly more than 10 and probably less than 50. The weather could be a factor, of course. 

We have prepared a many background analyses, available here. See also the "partial background" section of this July 2026 press release, and this ad: "Will Santa Fe aspire to be a "City of Peace," or will it be a City of War?; Without formal City opposition, a factory for weapons of mass destruction will continue to harm Santa Fe's identity. 'Without vision, the people will perish.'", Santa Fe Reporter, Jul 8, 2026. Prior in-depth local ads are here and more are coming, in an attempt to break the silence. 

We find it particularly sad that local young people are being groomed by a LANL-funded program administered by Santa Fe Community College to become plutonium machinists at LANL. This training is to take place in Santa Fe's Midtown Campus (the main developer of which -- Aspect Media -- appears to be a subsidiary of China Construction America, oddly enough). That specific program is headed up by Santa Fe City Councilor Amanda Chavez. 

Ms. Chavez has a conflict of interest, but living in New Mexico, don't we all? 

We do not know if the City made any serious efforts to recruit (or require!) renewable energy training and/or manufacturing tenants, or training in horticulture, or training in anything else that Santa Fe, the region, and our youth actually need to make the City and the region more resilient, not to mention peaceful. I discussed some of this with an aide to Rep. Leger Fernandez in Washington DC last week. It was the beginning of a longer conversation you too could have. 

In a related sidenote for future reference, Santa Fe's Midtown Campus is hosting an increasing number of entities tied to and/or funded by the LANL nuclear weapons program. All things "fusion" are in fact nuclear weapons related projects. This is a big subject which we can discuss another time. The Study Group has been involved in a critique of inertial confinement fusion at Livermore since the 1990s. In the years since, we didn't pay that much attention to the Z Pinch facility at Sandia, which now however is the prototype for much greater power levels (as input and as is hoped, output). For quick basic background see "America Leans on Fusion Breakthroughs to Turbocharge Its Nuclear Weapon Arsenal," Sept. 9,2026, Wall Street Journal, and "New Mexico Innovation Hub: A Growing Fusion Energy Cluster in Santa Fe," Aug. 5, 2026, Fusion Energy Base, and "Sandia eyes larger Z machine to expand nuclear weapons testing capabilities," Setp. 17, KOB TV. Congratulations to the reporters involved in these and other reports that could be added here. Actual fusion shots will involve tritium, and Pacific Fusion in Albuquerque (at Mesa del Sol) is aiming at nuclear detonations in the "100+ megajoule" range:  

And this August we will break ground on the world’s first net facility gain, high-yield (100+ megajoules) fusion system in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This facility will be the most advanced high-energy-density environment generator on the planet. It will be capable of achieving net facility fusion gain and creating some of the most intense bursts of neutrons, x-rays, gammas, and multi-megabar pressures with unique opportunities for a range of fusion energy research, commercial applications, fundamental high-energy-density (HED) science and national security.

100+ megajoules = 52.7 lbs TNT. That is a somewhat significant nuclear explosion. 

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