Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 14. Juni 2005 / Time Line June 14, 2005
Version 3.006/14/2005
3 Labs Rip Nuclear Program
By John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
http://www.abqjournal.com/north/361894north_news06-14-05.htm
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005_6_15.html
The United States' current approach to maintaining its nuclear
arsenal "looks increasingly unsustainable," according to an
internal report by senior officials at the nation's three nuclear
weapons labs.
The nuclear weapons program's future costs exceed the available
budget, and the effort to maintain aging warheads is forcing the
nation to retain a larger nuclear arsenal than would otherwise be
needed, the report concludes.
Completed last month, the report's findings mirror in some respects
those of a key House of Representatives subcommittee.
The House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee issued a
report last month calling for a sweeping reorganization of the U.S.
nuclear weapons complex as part of its proposed 2006 Department of
Energy budget.
The two reports set the stage for today's unveiling of the Senate's
version of the DOE budget, written by Sen. Pete Domenici,
R-N.M.
The outcome of the debate is critical to New Mexico, which is home
to Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, two of the three
U.S. nuclear weapons design laboratories. The federal government
will spend an estimated $2.9 billion this year for nuclear weapons
work in New Mexico, more than in any other state.
The House and lab reports both argue that it is no longer feasible
to maintain the existing Cold War nuclear arsenal by nursing along
old weapons, refurbishing aging parts when necessary.
The labs' report, written by a quartet of senior nuclear weapons
scientists and endorsed by the weapons program chiefs of the three
U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, argues that continuing to
maintain weapons is possible "only at significantly increasing
cost."
The program, dubbed "Stockpile Stewardship" when it was established
a decade ago, "merely preserve(s) nuclear weapons with out-dated
technology and a ponderous and expensive enterprise required to
support old technology," the labs' report concludes.
Because of resulting uncertainties about long-term weapons
reliability, "the United States must retain a relatively large
number of reserve weapons to ensure against contingencies," the lab
scientists from Sandia, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national
laboratories wrote— spares in case problems crop up in some
of the primary stockpile weapons.
Official stockpile numbers are classified, but the independent
Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental and arms
control group, estimates there are 5,300 nuclear weapons in the
active U.S. stockpile and another 5,000 being held in reserve.
The House subcommittee, led by Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, raised
similar arguments last month, concluding that the nuclear weapons
labs need to design a new "Reliable Replacement Warhead" that is
easier to care for in the long run.
Hobson's 2006 budget report calls for the new warhead to be
"designed for ease of manufacturing, maintenance, dismantlement and
certification without nuclear testing."
To do that, Hobson's spending plan would:
Reduce spending on refurbishment of current U.S. weapons;
Increase spending on design efforts for the new Reliable
Replacement Warhead;
Reduce spending on preparations for possible future underground
nuclear test blasts at the federal government's Nevada Test
Site;
Cut spending on nuclear weapons supercomputers, arguing that they
have not lived up to their promise as a way of conducting virtual
nuclear tests to maintain existing weapons;
Eliminate funding for a new factory to build plutonium nuclear
weapon cores; and
Delay money for a new plutonium lab at Los Alamos until the weapons
designers have a clearer picture of what the newly designed warhead
requires.
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