As a sidebar to...everything, I see that public comment is open on the LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Survey for plutonium pit production. As is tradition, some advocacy groups are organizing around this to try and shut the pit mission down. Some friendly remarks and reminders of fact: - ThreadSky

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social • 14 days ago

As a sidebar to...everything, I see that public comment is open on the LANL Site-Wide Environmental Impact Survey for plutonium pit production. As is tradition, some advocacy groups are organizing around this to try and shut the pit mission down. Some friendly remarks and reminders of fact:

Comments

misplacednuke.bsky.social•14 days ago

Good perspective, the 🧵.

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

The work at LANL and SRPPF is being done with utmost regard for safety and environment and deserves the full confidence of the American public. Yes, LANL has had problems in the past. Major lessons learned. The program staff take their responsibilities extremely seriously. This is not Rocky Flats 2.

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

The United States has not made plutonium pits at scale since 1989. The average pit age is ~40-50 years per public sources. Due to its self-irradiation behavior, plutonium's properties change with time. According to accelerated aging studies done at Livermore this is not a crisis *yet.* That said...

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

... As is publicly discussed and acknowledged in Stockpile Stewardship Management Plans, the Enterprise Blueprint, public statements on individual weapon alts & mods, and the large volume of Pu aging research the NSE produces... aging increases uncertainties. Not a crisis but a clear need to hedge.

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

The two-site strategy for Los Alamos and Savannah River Site calls for a threshold of 80 new pits per year. Contrasted with the 100s to about a thousand made in any given year in the Cold War this is very modest - indicative of the confidence NNSA still holds in the arsenal.

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

Our adversaries do not seem to have ever stopped producing pits. Open sources attest this very clearly for Russia and more cautiously for the PRC (a generally more opaque nuclear power.) The act of producing pits is not inherently exciting, destabilizing or especially dangerous.

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

We perceive the return to pit production as something exotic precisely BECAUSE we stopped for so long.

I hope this contribution to the discourse is interesting and compelling for at least a few of you. Apologies in advance if I do not comment or reply further in much detail.

cadencecivet.bsky.social•14 days ago

god

This is like folks wanting to shut a sewer treatment plant down

midlifesuezcrisis.bsky.social•14 days ago

In the interest of playing nice I do believe they think they're shutting down something dangerous and unnecessary. I don't hold quite the same level of irritation as I do for the people who killed Yucca, or MOX, or who keep trying to kill WIPP. *That* really is shutting down the sewage treatment.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply