Plutonium pit production at Savannah River Site is one of NNSA’s highest priorities

• By Matthew Christian mchristian@aikenstandard.com
• November 1, 2022

The failed Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site will be repurposed into a plutonium pit production facility. Construction work on the conversion is expected to begin by the end of hte year. (Matthew Christian/Aiken Standard)

Production of plutonium pits at the Savannah River Site and Los Alamos National Laboratory remains a top priority of the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration. 

The Department of Defense said in a declassified version of its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review released Thursday, Oct. 27, that the highest priority for primary production over the next 10 years is plutonium pit production. 

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review developed by the Trump administration said the NNSA needs to produce 80 plutonium pits per year by the 2030s to main the nation’s stockpile. In 2018, the NNSA received approval from the NNSA to build 30 replacement pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site beginning in the 2030s. 

Plutonium pits are the part of a nuclear weapon into which a neutron is injected to start an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.

The United States has been without a plutonium pit production facility since 1989. From 1953 until 1989, plutonium pits were made at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver. A combination of environmental mismanagement – the EPA and the FBI raided the facility in 1989 after receiving reports of numerous environmental violations from employees – and the end of the Cold War stopped pit production at that facility. 

Plutonium pits have to be replaced from time to time due to the age and decaying of the plutonium and other factors including new weapons designs and safety and security advancements.

"Restoring the ability to produce plutonium pits for primaries will guard against the uncertainties of plutonium aging in today’s stockpile and will also allow new pit designs to be manufactured if necessary for future weapons,” the department said in the report. “The two-site strategy at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Site will eliminate single point failure and provide flexible capacity options.” 

The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review said the NNSA will institute a “production-based resilience program” to address all elements of the nuclear security enterprise including primaries, secondaries, tritium, non-nuclear components, domestic uranium enrichment and systems assembly and disassembly. 

The report says the highest secondary production priority is the completion of construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and depleted uranium and lithium facilities modernization.

Modernizing tritium production will assure a reliable and resilient domestic source and options for longer stockpile life tritium components,” the 2022 report adds. 

The Savannah River Site is the only source of tritium in the United States. 

The NNSA said in a news release that it will implement the key activities in the report. 

“DOE has an essential and unique role in national security, and we take pride in fulfilling a key part of President Biden’s vision for a safer world,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in the news release. “We are grateful to DOD, NNSA, and the entire interagency team for their partnership and commitment to maintaining a secure and effective nuclear weapons stockpile, while prioritizing implementing nonproliferation, counterproliferation, and counterterrorism responses to reduce global nuclear threat."

NNSA head Jill Hruby will lead the efforts for the Department of Energy. 

“The NNSA has responsibility for nuclear deterrence by sustaining a safe, secure, and effective stockpile and by developing technologies that further nuclear security and arms control,” she said. “These missions are critical at this moment in time when the security environment has deteriorated.”

She said the review affirms the nation’s need for adaptability and resilience across the nuclear security enterprise. She added the NNSA is addressing its commitments through new initiatives focused on stockpile production, scientific and technological innovation, and better integration with our partners at the Department of Defense.

“We will also make strong investments in next-generation arms control, to improve our technical monitoring and verification capabilities and prepare the United States for future opportunities,” Hruby continued. “I look forward to working with our interagency partners to deliver on the full range of these activities.”

The classified version of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review was released to Congress in the spring by the Biden administration. To access the full unclassified report, view page 33 of the Department of Defense’s National Defense Strategy report located at bit.ly/3Wn5ZjN.