Doubtful that aging Los Alamos National Laboratory could safely produce plutonium triggers, no matter how much funding it gets
![]() Los Alamos National Laboratory will get a hefty funding boost — including for its work on plutonium pit production — in the military spending bill held up by a presidential veto. Many predict the veto will be overridden, and if it is, the lab’s budget will increase to $3.3 billion from the $2.3 billion allocated last year. The bill puts $837 million into the lab’s plutonium operations, more than double the previous year’s $308 million, as Los Alamos pursues production of 30 nuclear bomb cores by 2026 — a goal critics have questioned. Plans call for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to make an additional 50 plutonium pits by 2030, so the two facilities will produce a combined 80 pits per year as stated in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review……..
Watchdog groups call the Trump administration’s more aggressive push to bolster the nuclear stockpile hawkish and unsustainable, and expressed uncertainty about how much the incoming Biden administration might pull back. …… Tom Clements, executive director of SRS Watch, another watchdog group, said the 2021 budget will have to be carried out, and it will take time for President-elect Joe Biden’s administration to draft a new nuclear posture review. But Biden is likely to examine the nuclear modernization program in the coming months, including whether it’s feasible to convert Savannah River’s unfinished mixed-oxide fuel plant into a pit factory, Clements said. “There are growing signs that the SRS pit plant is gonna get a thorough review by the new administration,” Clements said……… Mello said he remains doubtful the aging plutonium facility that never produced more than a dozen pits in a year can be upgraded to crank out 30-plus pits yearly, no matter how much money is spent. “There’s a question of whether Los Alamos will ever be able to do so safely,” Mello said. https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/los-alamos-national-laboratory-may-get-boost-in-nuclear-funding/article_cd55c8a6-49f5-11eb-8718-2333908445b5.html |
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