U.S. DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Delays Urgent Research on Plutonium “Pit” Aging While Spending Tens of Billions on Nuclear Weapons Bomb Core Production; Heavily Redacted Document Obtained via Tardy Response to FOIA Request
Nearly three years after filing a Freedom of Information Act request, the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch has finally received the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) congressionally-required “Research Program Plan for Plutonium and Pit Aging.” However, the document is 40% blacked out, including references and acronyms. Plutonium “pits” are the radioactive cores of all U.S. nuclear weapons. The NNSA claims that potential aging effects are justification for a ~$60 billion program to expand production. However, the Plan fails to show that aging is a current problem. To the contrary, it demonstrates that NNSA is delaying urgently needed updated plutonium pit aging research.
“NNSA should have done this research into plutonium pit aging a decade ago,” said Tom Clements, director of the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch. “The nuclear weapons agency should postpone its ~$60 billion plan to aggressively expand pit production until independently reviewed pit aging and pit reuse research has been completed. NNSA’s proposed research won’t be completed until 2030, by which time it will be spending more than $4 billion annually on unnecessary plutonium pit production. That is entirely backwards and must be corrected.”
News release by SRS Watch, Tri-Valley CAREs (Livemore, CA) and Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, NM) posted here: News release FOIA on pit aging plan April 17 2024
NNSA’s heavily redacted “Research Program Plan for Plutonium and Pit Aging” is available at: https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Doc-1.-U-Research-Program-Plan-for-Plutonium-and-Pit-Aging-Report-to-Congress-NNSA-September-2021-28-pgs._Redacted.pdf
NNSA cover letter to FOIA response, citing exemptions for redactions in the aging plan: FOIA 21-00276-R, Final Response Letter (FRL)