U.S. military concerned about pit production
LANL only site capable of making nuke triggers, but expansion needed
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is concerned that the government isn’t moving quickly enough to ramp up American production of the plutonium cores that trigger nuclear warheads, as the Trump administration proceeds with a $1 trillion overhaul of the nation’s nuclear force.
Questioning about production of the warhead cores is likely to figure into a testimony that Energy Secretary Rick Perry is slated to give to the Senate Armed Services Committee, a rare appearance by the top energy official at the Senate body that oversees the military.
Plutonium cores are often called plutonium pits because they rest inside nuclear bombs like pits inside stone fruits.
At issue is the Pentagon’s demand that the National Nuclear Security Administration — overseen by the Department of Energy — be able to produce 80 plutonium pits a year by 2030 to sustain the military’s nuclear weapons. Roughly the size of a grapefruit, plutonium pits that trigger warheads sometimes need to be replaced as they degrade or end up destroyed during evaluation.
The only U.S. facility capable of producing the pits at the moment, Los Alamos National Laboratory, is just coming back on line after suspending production years ago because of safety concerns. The lab recently restarted its operation but is still producing only research-anddevelopment pits that are unsuitable for U.S. weapons. The facility must be expanded to meet the Pentagon’s requirements.
Air Force Gen. John Hyten, who oversees U.S. nuclear forces as the head of Strategic Command, voiced worries about whether the nation’s nuclear establishment will be able to meet the requirement, despite assurances from officials at the Energy Department and NNSA that they will prioritize the matter.
“I still have concerns,” Hyten said in a Senate testimony earlier this week. He said he was “very nervous” that the requirement might be met only “just in time.”
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has discontinued many of the nuclear weapons capabilities the nation built up during the Cold War. The United States began to rely largely on dismantling existing nuclear weapons for plutonium pits and stockpile management, as defense spending priorities diverted to the global war against terrorism.
Now the United States is facing a reckoning as Russia and China also race to advance their nuclear arsenals and much of the infrastructure the military relies on to support its nuclear capabilities ages out.