U.S. Nuclear Weapon "Pit" Production: Background and Options in Brief
Abstract
Congress is involved in the long-running and costly decision regarding the future production of pits; a pit is a nuclear weapons plutonium core. Rocky Flats Plant (CO) mass-produced pits during the Cold War; production ceased in 1989. The Department of Energy (DOE), which maintains U.S. nuclear weapons, then established a small pit manufacturing capability at PF-4, a building at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (NM). PF-4 has made at most 11 pits per year (ppy). DOE also proposed higher-capacity facilities; none came to fruition. U.S. policy is to maintain existing nuclear weapons. To do this, the Department of Defense has stated that it needs DOE to have the capacity to produce 50-80 ppy by 2030. This report focuses on options to reach 80 ppy. A separate debate, not discussed here, is the validity of the requirement; a lower capacity would be simpler and less costly to attain. Pit production requires many tasks, but this report focuses on two: pit fabrication, which forms plutonium into precise shapes, and analytical chemistry (AC), which monitors the composition of each pit. Any feasible option requires sufficient space (laboratory floor space) and Material At Risk (MAR) allowance. Each building for plutonium work is permitted a specified amount of MAR, that is, radioactive material (adjusted for radioactivity) that could be released by an event like an earthquake. Pits can only be fabricated in PF-4. Increasing its capacity to 80 ppy would require making more MAR and more space available in that building, which in turn would require moving out radioactive material and freeing up space. Both could be done, for example, by moving pit casting or work on plutonium-238 (Pu-238), which is much more radioactive than the plutonium used in weapons, out of PF-4. One pit fabrication option is to build one or more modules to move high-MAR work from PF-4. Modules would be reinforced-concrete structures buried near PF-4.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 20, 2014
- Accession Number
- AD1172092
Entities
People
- Jonathan E. Medalia
Organizations
- Library of Congress