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May 19, 2025 Bulletin 358: Reminder: pit webinar Tuesday May 20, 6 pm MDT; NNSA pit ambitions modest for next 2 years, other pit news; rest in peace, Damon Permalink for this bulletin (please forward!). Bulletins like this one go to our main mailing list. If you missed our most recent emails, they come in three forms and here they are:
Dear friends and colleagues: 1. Tomorrow's webinar on nuclear warhead core (pit) production, the largest program in NNSA history Tomorrow, May 20, from 6:00 to 7:30 pm Mountain Time, we will be hosting a webinar on pit production. All are invited. You must register in advance for this meeting at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/dZ23Gc-bSMWKC0rE8cyfxQ. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. For a preview, please see this double-page ad in the Santa Fe Reporter, to be published Wednesday 5/21/25: "We can stop LANL’s plutonium warhead factory – SPEAK UP NOW! LANL’s dangerous, expensive factory is “surplus-to-need.” Costs are soaring, completion is delayed, and impacts are mounting." This and previous ads can be found here. We work hard to make complex issues understandable in these ads. In them, we try to connect the dots in ways the media usually cannot. (If you would like to help support these cost-effective ads, by all means please do!) Please feel free to ask any questions you like about this ad in tomorrow's meeting. As mentioned in our May 8 press release the South Carolina pit lawsuit created an opportunity for mutual education on this topic. NNSA will eventually stop pit production at LANL, if it starts, but NNSA will not stop preparations for pit production in South Carolina because LANL alone can't support any foreseeable stockpile. No part of government will countenance relying solely on LANL for pits. Apart from other reasons, by the time pits are actually "needed" current LANL facilities likely will have aged out. The coming hearings (May 27-28) will address where and when pits are to be made, what production capacity should be sought, and what environmental impact analysis should be done regarding all aspects of pit production. We will be hosting further on-line discussions on this and other nuclear modernization topics as well as local meetings. If you haven't done so already, and want to know more about these topics and work with others on them, the first step is to join us and many others in endorsing the Call for Sanity, Not Nuclear Production. You can also follow developments on our pit page and its subsidiary links -- or for wider nuclear modernization issues, this page. 2. NNSA testifies to the apparent effect that LANL won't be making pits next year; Garamendi still wants LANL to make all the pits; "30 Diamonds -- Why?"; LANL begins 24/7 pit operations; snapshot of some construction at the SRS plutonium facility This section is nerdy. Our apologies, but it seemed valuable to pass on this information for at least a few readers, including journalists. *** On May 8 we wrote that Acting NNSA Administrator Theresa Robbins testified that NNSA's pit production goals for 2026 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." Actual pit production in FY2026 was not mentioned in her testimony or elsewhere in open session. There have been no open-source indications that LANL has made any pits so far in FY2025. By way of background, NNSA said hopes to acquire the initial capability to make 30 pits per year (ppy) "by 2028" (April 2024) or "in or near 2028" (January 2025)(the "30 Diamond" strategy). In its March 2024 budget request, NNSA said it could make an average of 30 ppy by the end of 2030 (the end of the "30 Base" subproject), then the capability for reliable production of 30 ppy at LANL would be in place by the end of FY2032 ("30 Reliable"). So when DOE Secretary Wright said NNSA would make "100" pits by January 2029, we said it could not. (See also EnergySec tells Fox News he wants to build ‘more than 100’ pits, Exchange Monitor, Apr 4, 2025). *** Representative Garamendi, whom we respect, unfortunately doubled down on Secretary Wright's comment two weeks ago, saying that if Los Alamos makes 100 pits under Trump, "what’s Savannah River for?" The short answer is that LANL can't make that many pits by 2029. The purpose of the Savannah River pit facility is to do what Los Alamos cannot. So the political result here is that the nation gets two pit factories at roughly twice the cost and at least twice the environmental impact: a small, high-impact "bridge" capability at LANL and a larger, more flexible and more permanent one at SRS, where production will be able to be dialed up or down as needed. *** As it turns out, the "30 Diamond" pit strategy was not received super-enthusiastically by everybody at LANL, as a briefing we recently received suggests (30 Diamonds, Why, Jan 2023, obtained via FOIA). It's just hard to safely operate an old plutonium facility and upgrade it at the same time. One LANL manager likened it to "overhauling an airliner while in flight with passengers aboard." *** No doubt due to these difficulties, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) recently reported that LANL's plutonium facility began 24/7 operations in April. The contractor has recently announced the beginning a phased approach to 24/7 operations in the Plutonium Facility. Contractor management determined that this change was needed to support the pit production mission. This week, resident inspectors performed an observation of backshift activities inside the facility. The backshift work had management presence and conduct-of-operations oversight. Resident inspectors observed significant equipment changes, including several rooms in which gloveboxes have been removed, and preparations are underway for new installations. They discussed the changes with Plutonium Infrastructure management. The resident inspectors also observed ventilation system surveillance activities. Graveyard shift work is inherently more dangerous and less efficient. *** Especially for those who have not seen the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), here is a short video clipped from a Savannah River Nuclear Solutions 3/31/25 presentation showing construction there earlier this year. The full presentation by Mr. Dawkins is here. 3. A wonderful former Study Group staff member, Damon Hill, has died Damon is survived by his wife Fatima, who was also a wonderful staff member here, and their two children Lili and Leo. Some of the fine work Damon did with us remains timely, especially for DOGE: Competition - or Collusion? Privatization and Crony Capitalism in the Nuclear Weapons Complex: Some Questions from New Mexico, May 30, 2006. Thank you for your attention and best wishes to all, Greg Mello, for the Study Group |
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