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US Should Cancel Plutonium Plant, Say Scientists
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Rachel Oswald reports that the Union of Concerned Scientists, an independent science advocacy organization, says that the United States should cancel plans to build a multi-billion dollar plutonium research facility in New Mexico and criticizes Obama administration plans for nuclear facilities and weapons. They argue that the plans to build new fissile-material handling plants are unnecessarily ambitious given the expected future downward trajectory of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant (CMRR) building at Los Alamos would replace a Cold War-era site at a cost of $6 billion. It is intended to assist in ensuring new and existing plutonium pits are in working order absent a return by the country to nuclear-weapons testing. The 81-page UCS report, 'Making Smart Security Choices,' (PDF) says if the U.S. carries out limited reductions of its nuclear arsenal over the next-quarter century — as President Obama has said he would like to do — current facilities at Los Alamos can produce sufficient plutonium cores to maintain the warhead stockpile. The CMRR complex is designed to have the capacity to produce between 50 and 80 plutonium pits annually even though no more than 50 cores are needed yearly and Los Alamos currently has that production capability, says report co-author Lisbeth Gronlund. 'The idea that you would need to produce up to 80 [cores] is not warranted,' says Gronlund. 'We think it's time just to cancel the whole thing.'"
Wrong isotope. Nukes need Pu-239, RTGs use Pu-238, and the manufacturing processes are different.
The Union of Concerned Scientists includes some scientists, but is an anti-nuclear political organization. This headline is like saying "Teenagers have unhealthy fantasies playing D&D, say mothers" amd omitting from the headline that "mothers" really refers to "Mothers Against Dungeons and Dragons".
While there is an easier way to specifically produce Pu-238, it is a byproduct of Pu-239 production.
If we simply stopped with the disarming there would be little need for expensive new technology
Nuclear materials have a half-life.... you can't take an unmaintained plutonium pit from the 1980s and expect it to function as designed thirty years later. Contamination from decay products will yield unpredictable results, ranging from a fissile (weapon fails to reach nuclear yield) to a significant increase in power (Castle Bravo is a good example)
The only way to control for this is to conduct weapons testing (a geopolitical non-starter) or to continue to produce new fissile materials with known quantities. Computer modeling can offset the need for testing to a certain extent but at the end of the day the only way to be certain that a weapon will work as designed is to test it and/or modernize the materials contained therein.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The USAF test-fired one or more missiles recently, it caused a delay for the SpaceX Falcon launch from Vandenberg last month. The missiles in stock will do the job if called upon. There doesn't seem to be any real necessity for a brand-new missile to replace the existing fleet other than as the existing hardware ages out. Any new models would have the same basic capabilities as the older Minuteman III designs so other than fitting them with larger tailfins and spending a lot of money with defence contractors why bother?
The US has very good warheads; over half of all nuclear weapons tests since 1945 have been carried out by the US and there really isn't much room for improvement or a real need to develop new warhead designs. The focus is on maintaining the existing arsenal in a working condition which is what the new Pu facility mentioned in the article is intended to do from what I understand.
As for China its long-range missiles are 1970s technology, liquid-fuelled multistage designs which are cumbersome and vulnerable to pre-emptive attack. They have no SSBN capabilities despite spending a lot of money and effort in trying to develop that capability and they have no long-range bomber force either. China probably has about the same number of nuclear weapons as France or Britain, less than a tenth of the arsenal the US or Russia hold. Bringing them into a START process would be pointless - what counterbalancing incentive could the US offer to the Chinese to get them to reduce their current holdings from 250 warheads down to, say, 100? The US and Russia can negotiate as equals as they have similar stockpiles, the Chinese are a second-rate nuclear force in that regard.
Different isotope, different production process, different quantity needs, etc.