For this presentation and far more info, click www.nukewatch.org (750,000 visitors a year do)

1
For this presentation and far more info, click
www.nukewatch.org(750,000 visitors a year do)

• Los Alamos Future
• New Bombs or
• New Policies?
• Jay Coghlan, Director
• Scott Kovac, Operations Director
• John Witham, Communications
• March 1, 2008

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A New Bombplex

• The Department of Energys semi-autonomous
  weapons agency, the National Nuclear Security
  Administration (NNSA), is planning to transform
  its nuclear weapons complex.
• Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has been
  selected as the permanent site for plutonium pit
  manufacturing.

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Plutonium Pit Production at Los Alamos

• Pits, often called triggers, are the cores
  that initiate the incredible destructiveness of
  modern H-bombs.

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Plutonium Pit Production at Los Alamos

• Los Alamos developed and tested the worlds first
  plutonium pits and produced them until 1952 when
  Rocky Flats began industrial-scale production.
• Much of the radioactive contamination in LANLs
  canyons is from pit production.
• Nevertheless, Los Alamos has maintained
• near continuous pit production, often testing
  new pits at the Nevada Test Site.

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Plutonium Pit Production Ended at Rocky Flats

• In 1989 Cold War pit production came to an end at
  the Rocky Flats Plant with a FBI raid
  investigating environmental crimes.
• The Cold War nuclear complex was busily producing
  its newest weapon, the 450 kiloton sub-launched
  W88 (30 times more powerful than the Nagasaki
  bomb), when the Plant was abruptly shut down.

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NNSA Seeks Expanded Plutonium Pit Production

• DOEs first argument to reestablish pit
  production was that it has no spare W88 pits for
  stockpile stewardship tests.
• However, the number of pits destructively
  analyzed is one per weapon type per year.
• Last year LANL produced ten W88 pits that were
  shipped to Pantex, the site of final nuclear
  weapons assembly.

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Expanded Plutonium Pit Production is Unneeded

• The Moscow Treaty requires that deployed nuclear
  weapons be slashed to 2,200, or under, by 2012.
• Why cant the number of deployed W88s --
  estimated in the mid-300s -- be reduced to
  create spare pits for stockpile stewardship
  analysis?
• Why manufacture W88 pits at all?
• LANL is currently sanctioned to produce up to 20
  pits per year. Even that is not necessary.

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Expanded Plutonium Pit Production is Unneeded

• At Nuclear Watchs request, Senator Bingaman
  required independent expert review of plutonium
  pit lifetimes.
• Those experts concluded that pits last a century
  or more!
• The oldest pits in the planned stockpile are now
  30 years old.
• Pantex stores 12,000 pits and can reuse 350 per
  year. Why produce new pits?

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Expanded Plutonium Pit Production Diverts
Resources

• Expanded production could block LANL from much
  needed mission diversification into addressing
  todays real national security threats, such as
  nonproliferation, energy independence and global
  warming.
• 65 of the Labs budget goes to core nuclear
  weapons programs. LANL cut its budget request for
  nonproliferation programs by 20.
• 0 of the Labs budget request is for renewable
  energy RD.

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Cart Before the Horse

• It is unreasonable and premature to invest in a
  major overhaul of the nuclear weapons complex
  before already required review of the role of
  nuclear weapons in U.S. national security.

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The Next Administration Will Redefine Nuclear
Policy

• It makes no sense for Complex Transformation,
  including expanded pit production, to proceed
  before a new Nuclear Posture Review.

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Complex Transformation is Premature

• NNSA repeatedly states that Complex
  Transformation is driven by Bushs 2001 Nuclear
  Posture Review (NPR).
• Congress has specifically required that a new NPR
  be completed in 2009, which means by the incoming
  president.
• Congress has also required a bi-partisan
  commission to recommend, by this December, the
  number of nuclear weapons needed and the
  necessary size of the complex to support that
  number.

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We Need New Policies,NOT a New Bombplex

• A growing bi-partisan chorus of national security
  experts - including former cabinet secretaries
  Bill Perry, George Schultz, and Henry Kissinger,
  former Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
  Sam Nun, and a wide array of national
  organizations - are calling for a radically
  different organizing principle for US nuclear
  weapons policy.

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NukeWatch Bottom Line

• The U.S. could and should go down
• to 1,000 total nuclear weapons immediately.
• Encourage Russia to do the same.
• From there, the U.S. should strongly lead in
  international negotiations that have the goal of
  verifiably eliminating nuclear weapons.

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Stockpile Stewardship

• Existing US nuclear weapons are reliable.
• They are certified annually as reliable.

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Dont Stand Under One!!!

• You think our weapons don't work? Go stand under
  one. But don't take your wife and kids."
• Bob Peurifoy, retired vice-president of
  Sandias nuclear weapons programs.

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Complex Transformation FAQs

• What is the status of the nuclear weapons complex
  today?
• NNSA - The current complex was designed and built
  during the Cold War and now is too old, too
  large, and very expensive to maintain.
• Reality - the U.S. should lead toward verifiable
  global nuclear disarmament under the 1970
  NonProliferation Treaty.

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Complex Transformation FAQs

• Why do we need to transform the complex?
• NNSA - to retire aging buildings and consolidate
  special nuclear materials at fewer sites in
  order to reduce escalating costs.
• Reality - This is gigantic hoax on the taxpayer.
  It is stimulated by self interest to extract ever
  more money from the taxpayer. It is also about
  new-design nuclear weapons.
• Bottom line NNSAs transformationproposal
  should be withdrawn until there is a new Nuclear
  Posture Review.

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Preferred Alternative Means Pits

• LANL would produce up to 80 pits per year, which
  ultimately is about new-design Reliable
  Replacement Warheads.
• Construction and operation of the Chemistry and
  Metallurgy Research Replacement -Nuclear Facility
  (CMRR).
• Upgrades to the existing pit production facility
  adjacent to CMRR, which would create a super
  plutonium complex.

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CMRR

• Los Alamos is destined to become this countrys
  permanent plutonium pit production center.
  (Unless we stop it!)

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2B CMRR at Los Alamos

• CMRR Phase A (offices and light labs) is under
  construction, but construction of the Nuclear
  Facility has not yet started. There is time to
  voice your opinion.
• CMRR is currently estimated to cost over 2
  Billion (original cost was 655 million).

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Weapons vs. Cleanup at Los Alamos Laboratory
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Spending at Los Alamos and Sandia Laboratories
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National Environmental Protection Act

• There are two opportunities for public comment
  during the NEPA process.

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Why Bother to Comment?

• Because
• The nuclear weaponeers want to build up their
  bomb production complex, not clean it up.
• Each of your comments adds to the public
  record, which can help provide the basis for
  resolving the issues in court.
• Democracy is a muscle. Use it or lose it!

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Speak up!

• The claimed need for new and expanded pit
  production is false.
• The Complex Transformation Environmental Impact
  Statement should be withdrawn until the next
  administration reformulates the nations nuclear
  weapons policies as required.
• The nations Bombplex must shrink as we head
  towards disarmament.

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Attend NNSAs Hearings!

• Santa Fe, March 13, 6-10 p.m., Genoveva Chavez
  Community Center, 3221 Rodeo Road.
• Espanola, March 27, San Gabriel Mision y
  Convento, Plaza de Espanola, 6 to 10pm.
  Activists fought for and got this hearing, so
  please show up!
• Submit written comments to complextransformation_at_n
  nsa.doe.gov
• Well help you!

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More NNSA Hearings!

• Albuquerque, March 11, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
• 6-10 p.m., Albuquerque Convention Center,
• 401 2nd Street, NW
• Los Alamos, March 12, 6-10 p.m.
• Hilltop House 400 Trinity Drive at Central
• Los Alamos, March 13, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
• Hilltop House 400 Trinity Drive at Central

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How to comment
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What Can Activists and the Public Do?

• Support your local, regional and national
  organizations that are working in the trenches.
• Volunteer or donate!
• Dont overlook the routine and obvious write
  letters-to-the-editor and continually make your
  opinions known to your congressional delegation.

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What Can Activists and the Public Do?

• Stay cool.
• Were doing this work for our children,
  grandchildren, the planet and posterity.
• Take the long view the Bush Administration will
  soon pass!
• Everybody needs to be convinced that it is
  everybodys interests to rid of the world of
  WMDs.

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We Have Impact!

• Collectively, citizens have
• Defeated the Modern Pit Facility designed to
  produce up to 450 plutonium pits per year and the
  Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.
• Played a role in plutonium pit lifetime studies,
  thereby knocking out the aging argument.
• Created widespread political change in the last
  election, offering the opportunity for rejecting
  the Bush Administrations extreme nuclear weapons
  policies as well.

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