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.'"

Comments

China and Russia continue to modernize....

[Shakrai]

.... while the US, UK, and France haven't fielded new warheads or delivery systems since the 90s. Russia has deployed new ICBMs, a whole new class of SSBN, she just tested an "ICBM" that may well be a IRBM in disguise (running afoul of the INF in the process), and nobody is quite sure what China is up to with her nuclear arsenal. The latter bit is particularly troubling, at least with the Russians there's a diplomatic framework in place for each side to verify what the other has. The size of China's arsenal and her deployed delivery systems is a huge geopolitical question mark.

The West needs to maintain a credible deterrence force; this means modern warheads and delivery systems. At the same time, we really ought to be making an effort to bring China into a disarmament and verification diplomatic framework, the kind we've had with the Russians for decades. It baffles me that none of our leaders talk about China when discussing nuclear weapons policy.

Re:China and Russia continue to modernize....

[Shakrai]

Israel is a regional player with limited abilities to upend the global geopolitical balance that has existed since the 80s. Geography and population will ensure that this is always the case. Not so with China; Russia's current expenditures on WMDs and rumblings about leaving the INF are driven in part by questions about China's intentions and the scope of her nuclear capability. Do you see Russia withdrawing from decades old arms control treaties as a result of anything that happening in Tel Aviv? Not likely.....

China needs to be brought into a modern arms control framework, preferably before a three sided Cold War breaks out. We don't need to "demand" it of her; it's simply a matter of geopolitical carrot and stick, the same as happened with the Soviet Union in the 70s and 80. The problem is that the existing framework either ignores China, or regards her as a smaller power, in the same league as the UK and France. She's not held to the same standards of transparency as the United States or Russia, and that really ought to worry the hell out of everyone.

Not just for weapons

[ArbitraryName]

I thought we needed to restart plutonium production for spacecraft RTGs?

Re:Not just for weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong isotope. Nukes need Pu-239, RTGs use Pu-238, and the manufacturing processes are different.

Re:Not just for weapons

[ArbitraryName]

While there is an easier way to specifically produce Pu-238, it is a byproduct of Pu-239 production.

Dual-use for scientific stockpile replenishment?

[Astrophysician]

What about using this to make scientific-grade plutonium for ourselves? There has been some news lately that the US has only a few dozen kilograms of non-weapons-grade plutonium left, putting the future of NASA's deep-space exploration program. If we had access to a dependable supplies, we might be able to really think about missions to Europa, Enceladus, and other places in the solar system where life may exist.

Blech

[Jiro]

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".

Re:I don't get it

[Shakrai]

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.