nuclear-news

USA’s unnecessary plutonium pits production to cost $10+ Billion

Cost Estimate for SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant to Soar to $10+ Billion? Causing Trouble for Contractors and Boosters Pushing New Pit Plant and “Money Pit” ICBM “Needing” New Plutonium Pits?   https://www.rnanews.eu/cost-estimate-for-srs-plutonium-bomb-plant-to-soar-to-10-billion-causing-trouble-for-contractors-and-127657.html 11 May 21,

Stay tuned for the release by the US DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration of a “Critical Decsion-1” determination on the proposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant. CD-1 would approve the basic project design and present an update cost range. The cost for the bomb plant could soar to $10 billion or more, more than double the earlier estimate of $4.6 billion to convert the partially finished plutonium fuel MOX plant at SRS to pit production.

The CD-1 document package was turned over to NNSA by contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) in January 2021. In March, the CEO of SRNS told the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council that a decision on CD-1 by NNSA could come in late May or June.
A huge jump in the cost of the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant will ramp up the pressure on DOE/NNSA/Department of Defense to fund such an expensive facility and the new ICBM, Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) – aka the Money Pit Missile – with a lifetime cost over $200 billion.  The new ICBM and its W87-1 warhead would require new plutonium pits.

This missile and pits for it are not needed.  As it’s part of planning for full-scale nuclear war, it would undermine national security and transfer a vast amount of money from patriotic taxpayers to contractors such as Northrop Grumman, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions and pit-production contractors at Los Alamos National Lab, the other site being considered for expanded pit production.  In sum, the GBSD and plans for new pits must be canceled and the CD1 document will be a wake-up call for decision makers.

Meanwhile, Congress is still refusing to investigate possible waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement of the failed MOX project by NNSA and contractors.
How the heck can they just sweep under the rug the waste of $8 billion on the failed project?  Who is Congress protecting and why???

May 11, 2021 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war