EMBATTLED LAB UNVEILS NEW NUKES

The United States’ arse­nal of 10,000 nuclear weapons isn’t enough. The coun­try needs more bombs, and the place to make them is the scandal-​​plagued, security-​​challenged Los Alamos National Laboratory.
That seems to be the mean­ing behind yesterday’s announce­ment by Los Alamos offi­cials that the lab has con­structed, for the first time in a long while, a plu­to­nium pit — the deadly heart of a nuclear war­head — that’s bomb-​​ready.
It’s been 14 years since the last one was com­pleted. The United States hasn’t had the abil­ity to make the pits since the FBI stopped pro­duc­tion at the Energy Department’s Rocky Flats plant for envi­ron­men­tal vio­la­tions in 1989.
It’s the open­ing trickle in what is sched­uled to even­tu­ally become a tor­rent of new nuclear cores. For the next four years, Los Alamos will make about a half-​​dozen pits per year. After that, capac­ity will ramp up to 10 pits per year — and then to as many as 500 new pits annu­ally, as the new U.S. Modern Pit Facility comes online in 2018.
According to the Bush administration’s cen­tral plan for atomic weapons, the Nuclear Posture Review, mak­ing addi­tional nuclear cores is key to keep­ing America’s poten­tial adver­saries cowed.
The abil­ity to “upgrade exist­ing weapon sys­tems, surge pro­duc­tion of weapons or develop and field entirely new sys­tems (will) dis­cour­age other coun­tries from com­pet­ing mil­i­tar­ily with the United States,” the review says.
In other words, the mere threat of blow­ing up oppos­ing coun­tries a thou­sand times over isn’t enough. America must have the option to make more nuclear weapons — and faster — than any other nation on earth.
My Wired News story has more.

April 23rd, 2003 | Los Alamos and Labs | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.