For immediate release July 18, 2024

NNSA/DOE Town Hall at Buffalo Thunder resort, Monday July 22, 6 pm MDT
The huge LANL program to build plutonium warhead cores ("pits") to be discussed

Other issues will include LANL cleanup, transuranic (TRU) waste removal and disposal, plutonium processing, and a third power line across the Caja del Rio

Contact: Greg Mello, 505-265-1200 office, 505-577-8563 cell. Further factual references beyond those cited here are available on request.

Permalink * Prior press releases

Albuquerque, NM -- On Monday, July 22, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Dr. Jill Hruby and Department of Energy Environmental Management's (DOE EM's) Candice Robertson will host a Town Hall Meeting from 6-7:30 pm MDT Monday, July 22, at the Hilton Santa Fe Buffalo Thunder (map), 13 miles north of downtown Santa Fe on U.S. 84.

According to the DOE, "those who cannot attend in person can participate virtually by registering here: Zoom Registration Link." Questions can be submitted ahead of time by email to external.engagements@nnsa.doe.gov.

We anticipate significant in-person attendance by many individuals, organizations, and businesses opposed to the creation and operation of a plutonium warhead core ("pit") factory at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Other issues likely to be raised from the public include LANL cleanup, removal of legacy transuranic (TRU) waste from LANL and its disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), the potential for other plutonium facilities and processing operations at LANL, and the planned construction of a third power line across the culturally- and biologically-important Caja del Rio to service LANL's nuclear weapons mission growth.

The question of whether the local "plutonium boom" benefits or harms northern New Mexico will no doubt be on many tongues.

By way of background, the current $22 billion (B) effort (see slides 34-36 here) to create a pit factory at LANL is by far the largest single project in New Mexico history in dollar terms. According to LANL Director Thom Mason, LANL has hired an additional 5,000 people over the past 5 years, with more to come.

LANL's pit factory, to be centered in a 50-year-old plutonium facility ("PF-4") designed for other purposes, is for "temporary" use, at least until a permanent, more adequate factory currently under construction at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina is completed.

Construction and startup of NNSA's plutonium pit factories comprise one of the very largest public works projects in the U.S. NNSA's preliminary estimate for the total cost is $28-37 B; we estimate the cost at $40-47 B, about the same as the entire Manhattan Project.

The sole production mission of the LANL factory complex is to make pits for the all-new "W87-1" warhead , which are to be used starting in the early 2030s to augment the existing stock of (roughly 530) modern W87-0 warheads available for deployment on the proposed "Sentinel" intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Up to 450 Sentinel missiles may eventually be deployed at a capital cost currently estimated at $141 billion, exclusive of warheads.

The LANL pit mission and the Sentinel missile system are part of a sweeping nuclear weapons modernization program that will cost over $2 trillion (a 2020 estimate; program costs have grown considerably since then) including operation and maintainance of the existing arsenal and cleaning up contamination at DOE sites used for warhead manufacture, especially those involved in plutonium production.

According to Dr. Hruby the factory at SRS will not make pits for W87-1 warheads. Only LANL will do that. LANL is now part of the manufacturing supply chain for the Sentinel missile program.

Each LANL pit will cost roughly $100 million to make assuming total mission success, counting the cost of both infrastructure and operations as any business would do (slide 38), assuming no further large cost escalations.

These LANL-enabled warheads are "needed" only in order to put multiple (up to 3) highly accurate warheads on each Sentinel missile. There are already enough existing W87-0 warheads to outfit all the planned Sentinel missiles without making any new warheads (or pits for those warheads). The LANL warheads are "bonus" or "extra" warheads for building out the U.S. nuclear arsenal in what is rapidly becoming an arms race against Russia and China.

Each new LANL pit is to be the core of a circa 300-kiloton warhead. That is 20 times the explosive yield of the Hiroshima bomb. LANL has promised to make at least 30 of these per year by 2032 -- earlier, if possible. In energy terms, this is the equivalent of at least 600 Hiroshima explosions annually.

Study Director Greg Mello:

"Continued growth in LANL's pit mission has enormous negative ramifications for the environment, economy, society, and governance of the region, and the state.

"LANL has not been an engine of economic growth in northern New Mexico. Nor will it do so in the future. Individuals have benefitted financially, but the conditions for true economic growth and cocial development are absent. The result has been inequality.

"The Department of Labor (DOL) has provided LANL workers and their familities almost $2 B in medical and death benefits to date. There have been over 1,600 worker deaths attributed by DOL to exposures and accidents at LANL. While most jobs at LANL are safe today, not all are, and there are still pressures to cut corners on safety to meet program and production milestones.

"We urge interested parties to go in person to the July 22 Town Hall to express their opposition to making the Greater Santa Fe area the "Plutonium Capitol of the Western World." Los Alamos is already the largest nuclear weapons facility in the world, in dollar terms.

"New Mexicans have a real opportunity to roll back the new nuclear arms race that is just getting started. LANL has failed at this mission four times already and if we are united against it, LANL will fail again. It's a gigantic boondoggle, with a poor value proposition even from where Jill Hruby sits. Please come and make your views known. Even if you love nuclear bombs and think they are the cat's pajamas for economic and social development, come to Pojoaque on the 22nd and let's talk about that."

***ENDS***