Foreign Policy In Focus

Regular readers are aware of how alarmed we are by the construction of a facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico intended, in large part, to manufacture something known as plutonium pits. Before examining the latest development in attempts to halt it, first some background on the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) from recent posts.  

If you're not a regular reader, you may be surprised to learn the federal government seeks to ram through a new nuclear facility that's intolerable on a number of counts.

1. Its intended purpose is to build plutonium pits -- the living, breathing heart of a nuclear weapons, where the chain reaction occurs. In other words, mad science at its most extreme.

2. Its projected cost, adjusted for inflation, may be greater than all the work done on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico during World War II.

3. The land the building will occupy is seismically, uh, challenged (subject to seismic shocks as great as those experienced at Fukushima).

A watchdog association called the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) has been spearheading efforts to stop the CMRR-NF in its tracks via a lawsuit against the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Energy (DOE). Re the objections to CMRR-NF, again from a previous post:

In the hearings Mello and Noted nuclear physicist Frank von Hippel, who, during Perestroika, helped sell the Russians on monitoring and verification (as chronicled in David Hoffman's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Dead Hand), testified. LASG's lawyer asked von Hippel why he thought a new study of alternatives to the CMRR-NF was called for? His reply (in truth, to an imaginary question: why do we need a facility that builds nuclear pits anyway?):

The need for large-scale pit production has vanished. In 2003, the [NNSA] was arguing that the [United States] needed the capability to produce 125 to 450 pits per year by 2020 to replace the pits in the US weapon stockpile that would be 30 to 40 years old by then. . . . But, in 2006, we learned that US pits were so well made that, according to a Congressionally-mandated review of Los Alamos and Livermore studies on pit aging, "Most primary types have credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years as regards aging of plutonium." [Besides, although] the Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories have been lobbying to develop and manufacture new-design "reliable replacement warheads," and the Bush Administration supported the idea, Congress refused in 2007 to fund the program.

Also the updated U.S. Nuclear Posture Review Report mandates that

In any decision to [develop] warhead LEPs [Life Extension Programs], the United States will give strong preference to options for refurbishment or reuse. . . . the preferred strategy is to reuse existing pits where necessary, or simply refurbish the balance of the warhead. . . . As of the end of Fiscal Year 2009, the total size of the U.S. warhead stockpile was about 5,000 warheads . . . and about 14,000 pits recovered from [decommissioned] warheads . . .  were in storage at the Pantex warhead assembly/disassembly facility in Amarillo.

In other words

There will be no shortage of pits to reuse.

Let's hope that those who worry that the United States would run out of these infernal little internal destruction machines will rest easy now.

Also testifying was LASG executive director Greg Mello. When asked by LASG's lawyer about the CMRR-NF's estimated cost, he responded.

In November 2010, the White House estimated the budget at "$3.7 to 5.8 billion." Defendants recently pushed back the projected date of a reliable cost estimate to 2015. 

In fact (emphasis added)

In its submissions to Congress, NNSA is just writing "TBD" in the future cost and schedule columns.

Echoing von Hippel (or vice versa; not sure who testified first), Mello explained that the Department of Energy's science advisory group, known as JASON,

. . . reviewed research done at LANL and Livermore on pit life. JASON concurred with these labs that most U.S. pits would last for a century or more. There are also extra pits for almost every kind of warhead, thousands in all, and these reserves [as von Hippel also mentioned] are growing as warheads are dismantled. . . . Production of new plutonium pits is not necessary to maintain a very large, diverse, powerful nuclear weapons stockpile for several decades to come.

Besides which, it seems the NNSA may have bitten off more than it can chew. I'll break down the relevant paragraph of the LASG newsletter into bullet points. The NNSA is attempting to create

• existing and planned new programs in the building, including new pit production and industrial-scale production of plutonium dioxide for mixed-oxide (MOX) reactor fuel

• the production of additional kinds of plutonium pits and in much larger numbers than before

• while also trying to fix the building in fundamental ways

• while also undertaking a giant construction project immediately adjacent to the facility

• not to mention several "smaller" projects (in the $50-$300 million range) that NNSA hopes to start nearby as well.

In the lawsuit, LASG contended that the project should not proceed without a valid, new environmental impact statement (EIS) to address seismic risks that creation of the facility at Los Alamos might incur. Apparently, the area is at risk of earthquakes as large as those that rocked Japan. Worse, the site rests on loose volcanic ash especially susceptible to shifting should an earthquake occur, which can result in fire and the release of radiation.

An EIS hasn't been worked up for the facility since 2003 and LASG believes that simply revising it in the form of a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) is woefully inadequate in light of how much plans for the facility have expanded. Unfortunately, the judge didn't agree and dismissed the lawsuit. From LASG's latest newsletter:

Judge Herrera's opinion rested heavily on the [SEIS] now underway, stating that this process itself, which began only after the Study Group's litigation was filed, and its "public participation" component in particular were sufficient for the court to stay its hand -- and dismiss the lawsuit. The judge did not rule on the Study Group's motion to enjoin the project. [LASG] has been urging members of the public to stay away from the SEIS hearings, which it regards as illegitimate.

And which, as has been pointed out to me, began the day that the judge dismissed the suit. Of the hearings, Mello said

We need to call them 'hearings,' in quotations . . . because the public record is replete with Administration statements saying it is not under any circumstances going to reconsider its commitment to this project, unlike what is implied in the hearing process. . . . [LASG] has instead called citizens to engage substantively with government on all levels to challenge. . . . Local government resolutions supporting [LASG's] lawsuit were passed by four local governments.  

In the end, writes Mello:

This decision, while disappointing, will not stop our opposition to this highly destructive project. It's a speed bump. If NNSA thinks they are in the clear now, they are wrong. 

Nor does the ruling

. . . change the facts on the ground -- the high seismicity, the cramped site and poor geology, the lack of need, the lack of money, and the basic horror and immorality of the mission. 

As I've mentioned before, the Los Alamos Study Group is manning the front lines of disarmament: the actual building of nuclear facilities. In a sense, what it's doing is trying to save the Obama administration -- and the United States -- from itself. The vast amount of money being spent on the CMRR-NF and the nature of one of its products -- the cores of nuclear weapons -- undermines any message of nonproliferation that we're trying to send to the world with initiatives such as the new START treaty. Excuse me if I repeat myself, but we're kidding ourselves if we think our disarmament double-dealing escapes the notice of a state like Iran.

Focal Points has frequently featured posts about the distinctly Soviet era-sounding Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility. The CMRR-NF, as it's known, is a project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory of such mind-numbing expense that it boggles the mind (doggles the boon?).

A watchdog association called the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) has been spearheading efforts to stop the CMRR-NF in its tracks. Permit me to excerpt an April 25 post that I blurbed: "Nuclear watchdogs take to the courtroom to halt the manufacture of a new facility to build the part that makes nuclear weapons explode."

Forces Opposed to Dangerous, Extravagant Nuke Project Get Day in Court 

If you're not a regular reader, you may be surprised to learn the federal government seeks to ram through a new nuclear facility that's intolerable on a number of counts.

1. Its intended purpose is to build plutonium pits -- the living, breathing heart of a nuclear weapons, where the chain reaction occurs. In other words, mad science at its most extreme.

2. Its projected cost is greater than all the work done on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico during World War II.

3. The land the building will occupy is seismically, uh, challenged (subject to seismic shocks twice as great as those experienced at Fukushima).

At the time the New Mexico nuclear watchdog group, the Los Alamos Study Group, was about to present its long-gestating lawsuit against the NNSA and the Department of Energy. In a recent LASG newsletter, Executive Director Greg Mello explains.

At 9:00 am Wednesday April 27th, in the Brazos Courtroom . . . of the Federal Courthouse . . . Albuquerque, the Honorable Judge Judith Herrera will hear arguments from the [LASG] and the federal defendants -- the Department of Energy . . . and the [NNSA] over whether final design of the CMRR-NF . . . should be halted pending analysis of alternatives to the project.

The two opposing motions:

. . . whether a) to throw out  [LASG's] lawsuit . . . or b) temporarily pause the project . . . in order to give the court the opportunity to hear evidence on the [LASG's] contention that the project cannot proceed without a valid, new environmental impact statement [EIS] [to address, primarily, the sesmic risk].

Hearing held, the  LASG is cautiously optimistic. Noted nuclear physicist Frank von Hippel, who, during Perestroika, helped sell the Russians on monitoring and verification (as chronicled in David Hoffman's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Dead Hand), testified. LASG's lawyer asked von Hippel why he thought a new study of alternatives to the CMRR-NF was called? In part, he replied:

The need for large-scale pit production has vanished. In 2003, the [NNSA] was arguing that the [United States] needed the capability to produce 125 to 450 pits per year by 2020 to replace the pits in the US weapon stockpile that would be 30 to 40 years old by then. . . . But, in 2006, we learned that US pits were so well made that, according to a Congressionally-mandated review of Los Alamos and Livermore studies on pit aging, "Most primary types have credible minimum lifetimes in excess of 100 years as regards aging of plutonium." [Besides, although] the Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories have been lobbying to develop and manufacture new-design "reliable replacement warheads," and the Bush Administration supported the idea, Congress refused in 2007 to fund the program.

Also the updated U.S. Nuclear Posture Review Report mandates that

In any decision to [develop] warhead LEPs [Life Extension Programs], the United States will give strong preference to options for refurbishment or reuse. . . . the preferred strategy is to reuse existing pits where necessary, or simply refurbish the balance of the warhead. . . . As of the end of Fiscal Year 2009, the total size of the U.S. warhead stockpile was about 5,000 warheads . . . and about 14,000 pits recovered from [decommissioned] warheads . . .  were in storage at the Pantex warhead assembly/disassembly facility in Amarillo.

In other words

There will be no shortage of pits to reuse.

Hope those concerned that the United States would run out of these infernal little internal destruction machines will rest easy now.

Also testifying was executive director Mello. When asked by LASG's lawyer about the CMRR-NF's estimated cost, he responded.

In November 2010, the White House estimated the budget at "$3.7 to 5.8 billion." Defendants recently pushed back the projected date of a reliable cost estimate to 2015.

In fact (emphasis added)

In its submissions to Congress, NNSA is just writing "TBD" in the future cost and schedule columns.

Echoing von Hippel (or vice versa; not sure who testified first), Mello explained that the Department of Energy's science advisory group, which is referred to as JASON

. . . reviewed research done at LANL and Livermore on pit life. JASON concurred with these labs that most U.S. pits would last for a century or more. There are also extra pits for almost every kind of warhead, thousands in all, and these reserves [as von Hippel also mentioned] are growing as warheads are dismantled. . . . Production of new plutonium pits is not necessary to maintain a very large, diverse, powerful nuclear weapons stockpile for several decades to come.

Meanwhile the NNSA is attempting to ram through a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), instead of an entirely new EIS. But

. . . issuing a SEIS at this point could not achieve NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] compliance [since NNSA] is . . . in the process of executing it as fast as it can. . . . To enforce NEPA, the Court should put the brakes on this juggernaut and then look for a way to achieve an objective NEPA analysis.

After all, Mello reminded us:

The Administration has made agreements with Senators to complete the Nuclear Facility.

Von Hippel expanded on this when the LASG lawyer asked "Why then, with this huge cost over-run and lack of mission, is the Administration pushing so hard to build the CMRR-NF?"

This appears to be primarily because a number of Republican Senators [led by Jon Kyl (R-AZ)] extracted a commitment from the Administration to build the CMRR-NF and a facility for producing weapon-components [at another] site in exchange for their votes to ratify the New START Treaty.

But, of course,

In the end, Senator Kyl did not vote to ratify the New START Treaty.

Von Hippel then speculates on how Kyl's double-cross, as it were, might have affect the administration's current attitude toward the CMRR-NF.

My guess is that, if this Court required it, some in the Obama Administration would welcome being forced to have a relook at alternatives to the CMRR-NF.

With so much invested in nuclear disarmament as an achievement that the Obama administration can brandish, scarcely does it wish to be played again by the opposition. As it is, the sincerity of its disarmament intentions is called into question by the CMRR-NF. Don't think nations such as Iran aren't watching the progress CMRR-NF and posing the hypothetical question "And you wonder what we want with nuclear weapons?"

If you're not a regular reader, you may be surprised to learn the federal government seeks to ram through a new nuclear facility that's intolerable on a number of counts.

1. Its intended purpose is to build plutonium pits -- the living, breathing heart of a nuclear weapons, where the chain reaction occurs. In other words, mad science at its most extreme.

2. Its projected cost is greater than all the work done on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico during World War II.

3. The land the building will occupy is seismically, uh, challenged.

Before proceeding, I'll wait until you get over your spell of cognitive dissonance. Yes, this is what passes for disarmament in the Age of Obama. The Albuquerque Journal provided an overview about the Los Alamos National Lab project.

Federal officials want to push ahead with a proposed Los Alamos plutonium laboratory despite soaring cost estimates and questions about seismic safety, according to a new analysis released late Friday afternoon. But the study stops short of answering key questions about how best to build a structure capable of withstanding a major earthquake at the site.

The National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA] study also brushes aside critics who argue that new understanding of earthquake dangers and . . . the resulting rising construction costs require a re-evaluation of whether the project as currently planned should go forward. . . . The most recent version of the replacement plan would cost an estimated $3.7 billion to $5.8 billion, according to a National Nuclear Security Administration report to Congress in December. That is a four- to sevenfold increase of the estimated price just four years ago.

"NNSA and Los Alamos Lab arrogantly think they can proceed with a blank check from the taxpayers for this gold-plated project," [Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico] said in a statement Friday evening.

Another New Mexico nuclear watchdog group, the Los Alamos Study Group, is about to present its long-gestating lawsuit against the NNSA and the Department of Energy. In his latest newsletter, executive Director Greg Mello explains.

At 9:00 am Wednesday April 27th, in the Brazos Courtroom . . . of the Federal Courthouse . . . Albuquerque, the Honorable Judge Judith Herrera will hear arguments from the Los Alamos Study Group and the federal defendants -- the Department of Energy . . . and the [NNSA] over whether final design of the proposed huge plutonium facility in Los Alamos -- called the "Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility" (CMRR-NF) -- should be halted pending analysis of alternatives to the project.

The two opposing motions:

. . . whether a) to throw out the Study Group's lawsuit, from the defendants; or b) temporarily pause the project, i.e. grant a "preliminary injunction," in order to give the court the opportunity to hear evidence on the Study Group's contention that the project cannot proceed without a valid, new environmental impact statement (EIS).

Mello continues.

Recently, Everet Beckner, NNSA's Assistant Administrator for Defense Programs during the George W. Bush Administration . . . said that not pausing CMRR-NF to consider the implications of the Japanese nuclear crisis would be a mistake.  He has particularly pointed out the dangers of a fire in the proposed . . . plutonium storage facility [in the event of an earthquake], a possibility which LANS, the Bechtel-led corporation that manages Los Alamos, has said it hopes to make impossible -- and therefore need not be analyzed.

However, LANS has also

. . . admitted that the safety of the . . . plutonium facility [as it currently stands] is more problematic than understood to date due to structural deficiencies in the building. [The] need for . . . structural renovation raise new questions about the practicality of proceeding with everything at once.

It seems the NNSA may have bitten off more than it can chew. I'll break down the relevant paragraph of the LASG newsletter into bullet points.

• existing and planned new programs in the building, including new pit production and industrial-scale production of plutonium dioxide for mixed-oxide (MOX) reactor fuel
• the production of additional kinds of plutonium pits and in much larger numbers than before
• while also trying to fix the building in fundamental ways 
• while also undertaking a giant construction project immediately adjacent to the facility
• not to mention several "smaller" projects (in the $50-$300 million range) that NNSA hopes to start nearby as well.

Mello sums up:

We now know that this site is subject to seismic shocks twice as great as those experienced at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The full implications of LANL's challenging geographic situation are only slowly being assimilated by the federal bureaucracy and contractor community. Both DOE and NNSA operate with an almost unbelievable "culture of optimism," as defendants themselves name the problem. 

All too often, the better part of optimism is denial, in this case, on the part of the federal government about the dangers and the eye-popping cost of work proposed for Los Alamos.

"The vastly ambitious CMRR project has greatly detracted from the attention needed to solve existing nuclear safety problems at LANL," writes Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG) in its latest newsletter. LANL, of course, is the Los Alamos National Laoratory, one of the United States' two nuclear weapons-design laboratories. The CMRR, about which I've often written about in conjunction with LASG's attempts to retard its progress, is the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility, intended to expand production of plutonium pits (where the chain reaction occurs in a nuclear weapons). 

In a cruel joke at a time of supposed disarmament, the CMRR promises to be the most expensive construction project in the history of Los Alamos. As for those safety problems, Mello writes, "LANL harbors many buildings which do not meet even the optimistic seismic hazard assessment of 1995."

In a press release, the LANL admits as much, announcing

. . . that it has self-reported to the National Nuclear Security Administration a new preliminary analysis of structural load capacities at [PF-4 plutonium processing facility]. That analysis, which incorporated new geological data and sophisticated computer modeling, showed that a large earthquake that might occur in north-central New Mexico every 2,500 years could cause significant damage to some parts of the facility.

In response, LANL's associate director for nuclear and high hazard operations, Bob McQuinn said, "While the latest calculations revealed some new areas to improve, we will quickly incorporate those into our ongoing facility improvement activities."

But Greg Mello says:

On 3/25/11 I spoke with a senior NNSA official in DC who offered the opinion that PF-4 would "never" meet modern seismic and safety requirements. It is not clear to me that any large-scale plutonium processing facility can be built at LANL, for any reasonable price, which does meet those standards.

Hey, look at the bright side. At least there's no danger that Los Alamos, on a plateau in the middle of desert country, will be overcome by a tsunami.

The light shining on the safety of nuclear energy as a result of the Japanese nuclear crisis has been of such powerful wattage that it's even flushing safety issues with nuclear weapons labs and manufacturing facilities out of hiding. Roger Snodgrass reports for the Santa Fe New Mexican.

On Friday, President Barack Obama asked the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review the safety of American nuclear power plants. . . . At Los Alamos National Laboratory, nuclear safety issues have been complicated with seismic concerns, as geological studies have uncovered an increasingly precarious underground structure.

Los Alamos, of course, is the national lab in New Mexico created for the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. Still a work in progress after all these years, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) facility is being built to the tune of a cool $4.3 billion. That's six times the cost (adjusted for inflation) of the division of the Manhattan Project that was based in Los Alamos.

The CMRR will be used to increase the capacity to produce plutonium "pits," which is where a nuclear weapon's chain reaction occurs. If that doesn't sound like disarmament, you're right. Funding for the project by the Obama administration was intended, in part, to win Republican votes for the ratification of New START. But, in terms of pure disarmament, it not only cancels out New START, it ensures the health of the nuclear-industrial complex for many years.

Snodgrass writes:

Everet Beckner . . . formerly a high-ranking official in the National Nuclear Security Administration during the Bush administration, called Friday for a pause in the design work underway [at the CMRR. He said] "the earthquake event in Japan was outside the current window of expectations because it was larger than a thousand-year event. . . . Maybe that isn't enough of a margin."

Turns out that at

. . . Los Alamos National Laboratory [LANL], nuclear safety issues have been complicated with seismic concerns, as geological studies have uncovered an increasingly precarious underground structure. . . . in the late 1990s [faults were] found to run near and even beneath some LANL nuclear facilities. . . . A survey found a number of LANL buildings to be at considerable risk of earthquake-induced collapse.

But this information

. . . was not immediately applied to building siting and design . . . . "When they set up Los Alamos initially, they didn't care about these things. They were looking for an isolated site," said [Greg] Mello [of the Los Alamos Study Group], who has studied seismic issues at the lab since 1996. . . . "Since then, many people have questioned the wisdom of putting a plutonium processing facility and now a nuclear pit manufacturing facility on the side of a volcano."

In fact, when it comes to locating such facilities on the side of a volcano in an area prone to seismic activity, there's no wisdom whatsoever to question.