U.S. Nuclear Modernization Plan to be Released

The U.S. Energy Department plans this month to reveal its long-anticipated plan for reducing and modernizing the nuclear weapons complex, the Amarillo, Texas, Globe-News reported Friday (see GSN, Nov. 1).

The department intends to operate a smaller, more efficient system of nuclear weapon plants and research laboratories, said Tom D’Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The new U.S. plutonium research and “pit” production center is expected to be located at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, although the Energy Department has not formally announced the selected site (see GSN, Nov. 16).

The Pantex weapon assembly plant near Amarillo is expected to assume greater responsibility for taking apart aging U.S. nuclear warheads.

“We expect the preferred alternative to be announced shortly in the month of December,” D’Agostino said.  “When we do that, we are going to describe the type of workload, the type of improvements we think we need to see in the complex that will sustain the complex at a reasonable size, at the right type of modernization level over the many years to come.”

The Energy Department’s plan to eliminate 80 percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in future decades would create an expanded role for the Pantex facility, D'Agostino said.

“That doesn't mean Pantex goes down by 80 percent,” he said.  “On the contrary, when you decrease the size by 80 percent, you're left with a chunk of warheads you've got to do something with.  Pantex touches every single one of those” (Jim McBride, Amarillo Globe-News, Nov. 30).

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