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[Gee, shouldn't someone call the IAEA about this?]
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - Sept/Oct, 2004
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/so04/so04lortie.html
No Plans for New Nukes Here!
By Bret Lortie
If you thought all the talk about new nuclear weapons was just hot air,
the proposed environmental plan for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
is a cool reminder that the Energy Department is moving ahead with plans
to ramp up production of plutonium pits and other materials for a
rejuvenated nuclear weapons program.
It has been more than 10 years since Livermore's "Site-Wide Environmental
Impact Statement" has been updated, and the National Environmental Policy
Act required that Energy produce a review to cover Livermore's planned
operations for the next 10 years. The proposal offers a rare glimpse into
the government's plans for the top-secret weapons lab.
If Energy gets its way, Livermore will be allowed to house twice the
plutonium and work with nearly 10 times the radioactive tritium it does
now, re****ts the February 21 Contra Costa Times. The lab will also start
research on how to manufacture plutonium pits (nuclear weapon cores) using
modern robotic manufacturing techniques. The lab currently cannot separate
large quantities of weapons-grade plutonium or fabricate the dense metal
into pits, things that Los Alamos National Laboratory (Livermore's
"sister" lab) is able to do.
The nearly tenfold increase in tritium-handling capacity, re****ts the
February 26 Tri-Valley Herald, would allow Energy to resume nuclear
weapons testing in 18 rather than 36 months if President George W. Bush
ends the 12-year moratorium on nuclear testing. Tritium is used in the
sensitive instruments used to evaluate nuclear explosions.
Livermore scientists would also use the tritium for filling small metal or
glass spheres used as targets in fusion experiments at the National
Ignition Facility--the world's largest laser--whose construction is
beginning to wind down.
Marylia Kelley, executive director of the Livermore watchdog group
Tri-Valley CAREs, says that in the mid-1990s her organization was told
that Livermore would never fill targets on site because the lab is just
too crowded. "Lo and behold," she says, "that is what they want to do. And
every time they increase their tritium workload, more tritium gets into
the environment."
"The most im****tant thing in all this," says Kelley, "is that this is a
10-year planning do***ent--and it demonstrates that this administration is
planning a long-term future for making weapons at the lab."
She says it's ironic that while Livermore is planning to double the amount
of plutonium it can handle (from 1,540 to 3,300 pounds), some Energy
officials want to "de-inventory" Livermore because of security problems.
Many of Livermore's security problems are linked to the lab's location,
Kelley says. Unlike Los Alamos, where plutonium facilities are spread out
over 43 square miles of remote land, Livermore's plutonium facilities are
crammed into an area just 1.3 square miles in size. "Livermore lab is
unique in the weapons complex because of how close the buildings are to
each other," she says.
"The plutonium facilities are next to tritium facilities, which are next
to both the lab's internal streets and local public roads. There are
people driving right next to the Superblock where work with radioactive
materials takes place. It's a very difficult complex to defend because
it's an extremely crowded site." With nearly 10,000 employees and
subcontractors coming and going through the lab's gates, it is also very
busy.
Kelley adds that more than 7 million people live within a 50-mile radius
of the complex, and there are several air****ts in the area with flight
paths carrying planes directly overhead. "This is not a place where you
can house plutonium and defend it easily," she says, noting that in
addition to overflights the danger posed by either terrorists or
disgruntled employees is very real.
"This is why Tri-Valley CAREs sup****ts the de-inventorying of plutonium
and highly enriched uranium at Lawrence Livermore."
Where does Kelley suggest Energy do the work? "A good deal of the work
done at this lab duplicates the work done at Los Alamos," she says, and
her organization rejects the idea that new labs need to be built if
Livermore's plutonium and tritium-handling capacities are not increased.
"This is an op****tunity to make Lawrence Livermore safer and to build down
the dangerous, duplicated, and unnecessary activities of the nuclear
complex.
"If you want to maintain the current arsenal, you do need some plutonium
capacity, but what exists at Los Alamos is far in excess of what's needed.
But if you're hell-bent on new weapons, what's planned for Livermore is
exactly what you'd do."
Another dangerous proposal in the Livermore plan is to triple the at-risk
limit for how much plutonium can be in a single room at one time. The
amount requested is not arbitrary but linked to specific projects such as
developing prototype plutonium bomb cores and new processes for separating
plutonium with lasers. "They want to be able to do anything they want to
do and not tell anyone about it," says Kelley.
"We think this is extremely dangerous for the community and for
proliferation. New nuclear weapons seem to absolutely be their intent.
What's new is that this is now being disclosed."
Does Kelley think the plan can be stopped? "If the public, scientific
community, and our legislators come together to oppose these actions,
they're stoppable," she says. Energy plans on proposing a "record of
decision" by January 2005, when the agency will advance its decision to
expand activities at Livermore. Kelley says that if Energy chooses to go
forward with the plan, her organization will consider litigation.
"It's a shocking blueprint for an increasingly aggressive and robust
nuclear weapons program," Kelley concludes. "And we're going to stop it if
we can.
"It's a moral, scientific, and political imperative."
[Bret Lortie is the Bulletin's former managing editor. ]
(c) 2004 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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