[E-rundbrief] Info 1515 - US Nuclear weapon modernisation

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1515 - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (USA): US 
Nuclear weapon modernisation program: the Trillion Dollar Trainwreck.

Bad Ischl, 18.4.2016

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

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US Nuclear weapon modernisation program: the Trillion Dollar Trainwreck

16.04.2016 - United States - Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

By Rick Wayman.

Proliferation begins at home. That has never been clearer than now, as 
the United States embarks on what many scientists at its nuclear 
weapons laboratories are calling “the second nuclear age.” The United 
States plans to spend $1 trillion over the next 30 years to 
“modernize” all aspects of its nuclear arsenal: the bombs and 
warheads, the production facilities, the delivery systems, and command 
and control systems.

This plan directly benefits the private corporations that are invested 
in the maintenance and production of nuclear weapons and raises major 
questions of accountability. The directors of the Los Alamos, 
Livermore, and Sandia weapons labs also serve as CEOs of the 
for-profit corporations that are contracted to manage the labs. When 
they propose a never-ending cycle of Life Extension Programs, they are 
literally lining their own pockets!

Trillion Dollar Trainwreck focuses primarily on the FY 2017 budget for 
nuclear weapons and wastes. It highlights Life Extension Programs 
(LEPs), proposed new production facilities, and other projects at 
Department of Energy sites. Most of them are completely unnecessary 
for national security. All of them are mismanaged, behind schedule, 
and wildly over budget.

Despite a clear obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty to “pursue negotiations in good faith on 
effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at 
an early date,” the United States continues to pursue LEPs that 
introduce exotic elective changes to the nuclear stockpile. Many LEPs 
will result in nuclear weapons with new military capabilities — 
contrary to promises made in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and 
assertions made by President Obama at the Nuclear Security Summit in 
March 2016.

The modernization programs outlined in this report, if carried out, 
will create untold tons of additional radioactive waste. This would be 
irresponsible under the best of circumstances. Given the indefinite 
closure of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and the absence of any 
method of responsibly treating and storing high-level waste, the plan 
is reckless. Considering the astounding mess that already exists at 
former nuclear weapons production sites, including the Hanford 
Reservation, the Savannah River Site and many others, any proposal 
that will create additional waste is inexcusable.

Communities around former and current weapons facilities face ongoing, 
increasing risks because the Department of Energy does not clean up 
its messes. In Washington state, leaking underground tanks are 
releasing high-level radioactive waste. Across the weapons complex, 
hundreds of abandoned nuclear production facilities remain 
contaminated, forcing NNSA to spend millions on maintenance to try to 
contain contaminants. While DOE demands, and Congress grants, an 
ever-larger budget for its nuclear weapons program, the budget to 
address DOE’s environmental mess is nearly flat year after year.

Add to this the problems with nuclear waste that has been generated 
over the past seven decades — high-level waste, transuranic waste, 
commercial spent nuclear fuel. Each kind of waste requires its own 
storage or disposal path. DOE’s attempts to build facilities or to 
persuade communities to host waste dumps is prone to the same 
mismanagement and procedural failures as its over-budget and 
over-schedule construction projects. For the time being, the safest, 
least expensive, and most sensible option is to store waste safely and 
securely where it is generated.


     Above: Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs and 
co-author of Trillion Dollar Trainwreck, discussed the report on 
Democracy Now on April 13, 2016.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, acting as a public interest 
watchdog over one of the federal government’s most dysfunctional 
agencies, can be expected to be critical of the culture of 
mismanagement and waste that prevails across the weapons complex. But 
there are some positive signs in the President’s FY 2017 budget that 
should be reinforced.

The DOE request that the Mixed Oxide fuel project (MOX) be terminated 
is one example. After years of throwing good money after bad, this 
pork-barrel project is finally getting what it deserves: closure. 
While termination of the project will cost $500 million or more, it 
will result in significant cost savings in the long-term and will 
allow the United States to pursue safer, more sensible alternatives 
for plutonium disposition.

The W78/88-1 Interoperable Warhead, which was delayed for five years 
in the FY2015 budget, should be cancelled outright. The cost of this 
plan, which is opposed even by the Navy, is in the tens of billions of 
dollars. Even more worrying, the radical changes that could ensue from 
the mash-up of designs and components may compromise the weapon’s 
reliability, leading to pressure to resume full-scale nuclear testing.

Trillion Dollar Trainwreck recommends an alternative approach to the 
nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile — Curatorship — that would avoid 
making unnecessary and destabilizing changes to warheads.

Curatorship is a conservative approach that requires rigorous 
surveillance of the active stockpile on an ongoing basis. Components 
are replaced only if compelling evidence from surveillance 
demonstrates that they have degraded to a point that significantly 
compromises safety or reliability. Replacement parts would be 
(re)manufactured as closely as possible to their original designs, 
with a bias toward minimizing changes and preserving the weapon’s 
reliability. Elective modifications to upgrade weapons would be curtailed.

While Curatorship is not in and of itself the disarmament called for 
under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreswearing novel designs and 
features is more consistent with our treaty obligations and more 
supportive of our global nonproliferation objectives than the current 
program.

Examined together, the issues raised in this report are cause for 
great alarm. Some problems can be alleviated and dramatic cost savings 
realized by scrapping plans for future projects or reining in 
unnecessary elements. Other problems, most notably existing 
environmental contamination and high-level waste, must be addressed by 
redirecting the ever-rising budget for nuclear weapons production to 
cleaning up the widespread, dangerous mess that has already been made.

Failure to do so places workers, the public and the environment at 
ever greater risk of catastrophic consequences.

Contributors to the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability’s Trillion 
Dollar Trainwreck report include:

Beatrice Brailsford – Snake River Alliance, Pocatello, Idaho
Tom Clements – Savannah River Site Watch, Columbia, South Carolina
Jay Coghlan – Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Don Hancock – Southwest Research and Information Center, Albuquerque, 
New Mexico
Alexis Hill – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California
Ralph Hutchison – Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Oak Ridge, 
Tennessee
Marylia Kelley – Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore, California
Scott Kovac – Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Liz Mattson – Hanford Challenge, Seattle, Washington
Bob Schaeffer – Public Policy Communications, Sanibel, Florida
Rick Wayman – Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Santa Barbara, California


About The Author
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
To educate and advocate for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons 
and to empower peace leaders.

http://www.pressenza.com/author/nuclear-age-peace-foundation/


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Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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