Good to see that an invitation-only briefing has been scheduled in Congress about problems and obstacles associated with ramped up production of plutonium “pits” (for nuclear weapons).
Expanded pit production at Los Alamos National Lab and/or Savannah River Site (which has never produced pits), which is costly, dangerous and dirty, has not been justified and will undergo close scrutiny by the new Congress and the public. Stay tuned for more on the “Discussion on Pit Production Pitfalls”
In the meantime, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration is stumbling in the face of the legal requirement to first prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) on DOE-wide need and environmental impacts of new pit production, especially in the closed plutonium fuel (MOX) plant at SRS. See news release on the PEIS and pits matter – by SRS Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico (Santa Fe, New Mexico) and Tri-Valley Cares (Livermore, California):