U.S. Accelerates Warhead Dismantlement

The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee this year has accelerated the pace of nuclear warhead dismantlement by 50 percent from 2006, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported yesterday (see GSN, March 20).

Work on four warhead types in storage — the W-55 used on antisubmarine rockets, the W-48 and W-79 placed on artillery shells and the W-70 ballistic missile tips — is expected to be finished this year.

“We are definitely on schedule, and our plans are to at least stay on schedule, if not exceed it,” said program manager Dan Linehan.

The speed of warhead dismantlement could be tripled over the next two years through a new “debonding” technique.

“We have certain systems that are bonded together adhesively, and they weren’t necessarily designed to be dismantled,” he said.  “They can be very technically challenging to take apart.”

Even with the new system, dismantlement of thousands of warhead parts is expected to take decades, Linehan said (Frank Munger, The Knoxville News Sentinel, April 16).

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