nuclear-news

US nuclear weapons modernization plan spurs cost questions

Susan Montoya Bryan, Independent. 27 April 23

The U.S. agency that oversees development and maintenance of the nation’s nuclear arsenal is moving ahead with plans to modernize production of key components for the weapons, but some watchdog groups and members of Congress are concerned about persistent delays and cost overruns.

The National Nuclear Security Administration released its annual plan on Monday, outlining the multibillion-dollar effort to manufacture plutonium pits, the spherical cores that trigger the explosion in thermonuclear weapons, at national laboratories in New Mexico and South Carolina.

The Savannah River Site in South Carolina faces a 2030 deadline to make 50 pits per year. Officials already have acknowledged they won’t meet that timeline, and this year’s report no longer includes a target date for Los Alamos National Laboratory, in New Mexico, to meet its goal of 30 pits per year.

Last year’s report had pegged 2026 as the year when manufacturing would be up and running at Los Alamos, which played a key role in the Manhattan Project during World War II and was the birthplace of the atomic bomb……………..

The Biden administration is requesting $18.8 billion for weapons activities, a 10% increase over spending for the last fiscal year. Modernization of production accounts for $5.6 billion of the request.

Members of congressional subcommittees blasted Hruby and top defense officials during hearings in recent weeks about the delays and the increasing price tag. Hruby acknowledged that it would be another year before her agency would have a full cost estimate.

The NNSA fell short when it came to having a comprehensive schedule for the project and ran the risk of delays and increasing budgets because its plans for reestablishing plutonium pit production didn’t follow best practices, according to a January Government Accountability Office report.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts suggested during a hearing this month that the NNSA was making up its plan as it goes along and that the timeline would be extended even further.

“It is not unreasonable for Congress to ask you to tell us how long a project is going to take and how much it’s going to cost in exchange for our forking over billions of dollars. And I suggest that’s what NNSA be required to do before we give them another penny,” Warren told Hruby………   https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/national-nuclear-security-administration-ap-congress-albuquerque-south-carolina-b2327627.html

April 27, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war