'We've got to...': Energy Secretary Chris Wright affirms commitment to plutonium pit production

• By Matthew Christian mchristian@aikenstandard.com
• Apr 3, 2025
  

Going from Joe Biden to Donald Trump may have brought a lot of changes but one thing will remain the same: the Department of Energy remains committed to producing plutonium pits. 

"... we've realized we’ve got to restore the production of plutonium pits in our complex," Wright told Fox News. "We’ve built one in the last 25 years, and we'll build more than 100 during the Trump administration." 

Plutonium pits — so named because they resemble a peach pit — are the core of a nuclear weapon. An explosion compresses the pit which causes the beginning of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. 

During the Cold War, the United States produced between 1,000 and 2,000 pits per year at a Colorado plant that was shut down due to a scandal and environmental concerns. 

Putonium is notoriously unstable and there's fear among some scientists that, over time, the plutonium in the pits could decay and not function correctly should a nuclear weapon be deployed. 

During the first Trump administration, the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration addressed this concern by developing a plan to produce 80 pits per year beginning in the mid-2030s. 

The NNSA plans for Los Alamos National Laboratory to make 30 pits per year and for the Savannah River Site to 50 plutonium pits per year. 

Los Alamos produced roughly 30 pits from 2007 to 2012 and another pit last year. 

Savannah River Site pit production is set to begin in the mid-2030s with a target facility construction completion of 2032. 

The Barack Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations were all committed to nuclear weapon modernization, former NNSA head Frank Rose said last year.

All three saw a changing geopolitical landscape: an aggressive Russia and a China that's committed to upgrading its own nuclear arsenal, he added. 

"We’ve built one in the last 25 years, and we'll build more than 100 during the Trump administration," Wright continued. 

The NNSA's plans and federal law call for Los Alamos pit production to increase to 30 pits per year from 2024-2026. 

"If NNSA were able to meet these obligations at LANL, Secretary Wright's pledge to produce 'more than 100' pits by the end of this administration (Jan. 20, 2029) would be reasonable," Los Alamos Study Group said in a news release.

But, "NNSA expects to have an initial 30 pit per year 'capability' installed at LANL – not this year, 2025, which would be necessary if NNSA expected to be able to produce the required 30 pits next year per statute – but by Sept. 30, 2028," the study group continued. 

Reliable production equipment won't be installed until 2032, the study group adds.