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DOE finally confirms that the congressionally required public-private funding plan for the plutonium-fueled Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) doesn’t exist.

Why did it take over two years to make this embarrassing admission?

If you are following the issue of production of plutonium “pits” for new nuclear weapons, you will want to check out this April 27, 2023 article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

Dealing with a debacle: A better plan for US plutonium pit production

By Curtis T.

Read why there is no “need” for a nuclear bomb factory (to make plutonium cores for new nuclear weapons) at SRS:

“Dealing with a debacle: A better plan for US plutonium pit production“

As always, complex nuclear projects for DOE are always delayed and run far over budget. Now we see that happening with the proposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant and the missile for which new pits would be supplied (for the W87-1 warhead).

Nuclear Watch New Mexico reviews proposed Fiscal Year 2024 federal budget and finds  some very alarming things, March 13, 2023:

Biden Releases Record NNSA Nuclear Weapons Budget

Santa Fe,

SRS Watch news: SCANA Official in Charge of Construction of Failed VC Summer Nuclear Project to be Sentenced in Federal Court on March 8, 2023; Admitted Felon Faces 5-Years in Prison but Asks for 15-Month Sentence;

Will export of uranium from the United States to Russia help pay for the war?  How long will uranium export and import go on? Will a new export license be sought after the current license expires on December 31,

Those aiming to proliferate weapon-usable plutonium suffer yet another setback:

“Japan’s Rokkasho reprocessing plant, 25 years behind schedule, delayed again”

On 26 December 2022, Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited announced another delay in completion of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant.

Governor Michele Lujan Grisham of New Mexico has sent a letter, dated November 16, 2022,  to President Biden in opposition to private plans for “interim” storage of highly radioactive commercial spent fuel in southeastern New Mexico.

New plutonium pit production facilities at the Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina are being pursued to initially make pits (cores,

Schedule for federal court proceedings against top Westinghouse official – Jeffrey Benjamin – at the VC Summer construction site for felony conspiracy & fraud in the failed construction of two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors –

More public interest victories to add to the list of victories over 40 years!

In July 2022, there have been two significant developments at the U.S.

The new CDU-Green coalition in the North Rhine-Westphalia government has negative implications for the decade-long effort to dump German spent fuel on the Savannah River Site. That spent fuel is from the long-closed AVR gas-cooled reactor and the spent fuel is stored at Jülich.

A skeptical Congress is finally beginning to put some requirements on plutonium pit production, for new nuclear weapons, in the face of DOE’s effort to move forward without constraints. 

Zombie project stays in the crypt: The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) was defunded by Congress in March 2022 and therefore killed. But some die-hard backers in DOE still keep after the reactor,

SRS Watch staff and volunteers were asked to table at the Bonnie Raitt/Lucinda Williams concerts in Charlotte, NC on June1, 2022 and in Columbia, SC on June 4,

Film about air crash over Spain, with four lost nuclear weapons – THE PLUTONIUM WASTE & CONTAMINATED EQUIPMENT WAS DUMPED in LOW-LEVEL WASTE BURIAL GROUND AT the US DOE’s SAVANNAH RIVER SITE in SOUTH CAROLINA.

Issuance by US Nuclear Regulatory Commission of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant in Columbia, SC is delayed again – to July 2022.  Final decision on operating license extension scheduled for August 2022. 

Given the proposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant (PBP) to build plutonium pits for new, provocative nuclear weapons, an integral part of a dangerous US policy to fight a full-scale nuclear war,

Storage of plutonium “pits” (core of nuclear weapons) aren’t being stored to safety requirements at DOE’s Pantex site in Texas.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) staff report “Pantex Plant Pit Inventory Review”

On March 16, 2022, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) released its annual plans for nuclear weapons.  Called the “Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan,” it lays out NNSA support for keeping the US on the footing to fight a full-scale nuclear war.

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), which conducts oversight of DOE projects , has confirmed that plutonium from SRS was taken to the Pantex site in Texas,

 

UPDATE on March 9, 2022: Looks like the end is at hand for the Versatile Test Reactor (VTR). It is due to get knocked out of the House Omnibus funding legislation for Fiscal Year 2022 funding &

SRS Watch has requested of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that key construction completion dates be released to the public about the construction of the $30+ billion Vogtle nuclear reactors by Southern Nuclear (parent of Georgia Power) in Georgia,

As anticipated, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), serving its Department of Defense (DOD) client, has instructed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the government-owned Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to take steps to increase production of tritium gas in the commercial Watts Bar Nuclear Bomb Reactors (WBNBRs) in Tennessee. 

“Burned nuclear worker, troubled history raise EPA concern over SC atomic fuel plant”

Front page article in The State, Columbia, SC, December 6, 2021

linked here:   https://www.thestate.com/news/local/environment/article256294532.html

SRS Watch report on role of the Westinghouse military-commercial dual-use facility in nuclear weapons:

Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed –

Nuclear Hotseat podcast:  “Plutonium Pits Lawsuit re: Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Los Alamos in New Mexico”

– with update on our lawsuit against DOE for failure to prepare a Programmatic EIS on expanded pit production at SRS (via the proposed Plutonium Bomb Plant) and at Los Alamos National Lab,

According to communication fro m the NRC’s Region 2 to SRS Watch, Dominion Energy’s VC Summer unit 1 reactor north of Columbia, South Carolina has been shut down due to a transformer fir report on November 17.

Article, behind paywall in The State news paper, front page Nov. 21, 2021, is based on the SRS Watch report released on November 19, 2021:  “Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed”

“Plutonium could go to New Mexico next year. It will come from the Savannah River Site” – SRS plutonium has already been shipped to WIPP in New Mexico but the amounts could ramp up,