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| | | published Wednesday, May 29, 2013 | 250 Views :: 4 Comments |
May 26, 2013
By the New York Times Editorial Board From The New York Times
The United States has about 180 B61 gravity nuclear bombs based in Europe. They are the detritus of the cold war, tactical weapons deployed in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey to protect NATO allies from the once-feared Soviet advantage in conventional arms. But the cold war is long over, and no American military commander can conceive of their ever being used. Even so, President Obama has put $537 million in his 2014 budget proposal to upgrade these bombs. When all is said and done, experts say, the cost of the rebuilding program is expected to total around $10 billion — $4 billion more than an earlier projection — and yield an estimated 400 weapons, fitted with new guided tail kits so that they are more reliable and accurate than the current ones.
This is a nonsensical decision, not least because it is at odds with Mr. Obama’s own vision. In a seminal speech in Prague in 2009 and a strategy review in 2010, Mr. Obama advocated the long-term goal of a world without nuclear arms and promised to reduce America’s reliance on them. He also promised not to field a new and improved warhead.
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| | | published Monday, April 22, 2013 | 576 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plan to spend $10bn on updating nuclear bombs goes against 2010 pledge not to deploy new weapons, say critics
April 21, 2013 By Julian Borger From the Guardian (UK)
Nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers. Photograph: EPA Barack Obama has been accused of reneging on his disarmament pledges after it emerged the administration was planning to spend billions on upgrading nuclear bombs stored in Europe to make the weapons more reliable and accurate.
Under the plan, nearly 200 B61 gravity bombs stockpiled in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Turkey would be given new tail fins that would turn them into guided weapons that could be delivered by stealth F35 fighter-bombers.
"This will be a significant upgrade of the US nuclear capability in Europe," said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the Federation of Nuclear Scientists. "It flies directly in the face of the pledges Obama made in 2010 that he would not deploy new weapons."
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| | | published Tuesday, November 06, 2012 | 2088 Views :: 2 Comments |
Nov 4, 2012 By John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
Pictured is a B61 nuclear bomb. The National Nuclear Security Administration has underestimated by billions more how much it will cost to refurbish the nation’s stockpile of B61s, according to an independent cost assessment. (COURTESY OF wikipedia)
The National Nuclear Security Administration, already under fire for billions of dollars of cost overruns, has underestimated by billions more how much it will cost to refurbish the nation’s stockpile of B61 nuclear bombs, according to an independent cost assessment commissioned by the agency.
Already juggling its budget to cope with existing problems, the agency will likely need to come up with another $1 billion per year for the next few years if the project is to go ahead as currently envisioned, according to a summary of the assessment obtained by the Journal.
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| | | published Tuesday, October 02, 2012 | 2049 Views :: 0 Comments |
October 2, 2012
By John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
Efforts to refurbish the U.S. stockpile of aging W76 nuclear warheads are falling behind schedule and threatening to bust the project’s budget, according to an internal Department of Energy investigation.
The problem “could have national security implications” as the federal budget crunch collides with the need to upgrade the nation’s aging arsenal, according to a report from the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General.
Built in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the warheads are carried aboard U.S. missile submarines. An estimated 768 are deployed, according to nuclear weapons analyst Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. That number is more than any other nuclear weapon type in the U.S. arsenal.
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| | | published Monday, August 06, 2012 | 1662 Views :: 0 Comments |
Holy cost overruns, Batman!
Aug 5, 2012
By Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board
Appropriate, because cost overruns in the nation’s nuclear weapons complex have reached comic book proportions. But this isn’t funny. In fact, the ineptitude and incompetence of the National Nuclear Security Administration is becoming a real threat to our nuclear deterrence and our national security.
The price tag to refurbish the B61, a nuclear bomb designed by Sandia and Los Alamos national labs in the 1960s, has doubled from about $4 billion two years ago to $8 billion, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration. And it might get worse. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, says an independent review being done by the Defense Department puts the cost even higher, at $10 billion.
This budget buster is hardly an anomaly.
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| | | published Friday, July 27, 2012 | 915 Views :: 4 Comments |
Jul 27, 2012
By John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
Refurbishing the nation’s B61 nuclear bombs, a major project at New Mexico’s nuclear weapons labs, will cost $8 billion, double the federal government’s estimate two years ago, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Feinstein, who chairs the Senate committee overseeing the nuclear weapons budget, said the problem is the latest in a series of cost overruns in New Mexico and elsewhere that threaten the nation’s ability to modernize its aging nuclear weapons and the infrastructure that supports it.
“Increased costs and schedule delays have already had a significant impact on modernization plans,” Feinstein said during a congressional hearing Wednesday.
“If these cost overruns were in the private sector, heads would roll and the program would probably be canceled,” said Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington, D.C., watchdog.
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| | | published Wednesday, July 25, 2012 | 1141 Views :: 2 Comments |
July 25, 2012
By Megan Scully From CQ Today Online News - Defense
An independent Defense Department cost analysis delivered this week to Capitol Hill concludes that the effort to modernize the B61 nuclear bomb has ballooned to $10 billion, more than double the original estimate.
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water, said Wednesday that national security officials briefed her office this week on the costs of the B61 life extension program, whose total price tag was originally estimated at $4 billion.
The National Nuclear Security Administration expects the program to now cost $8 billion, Feinstein said. But the Pentagon’s Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, which conducted a concurrent review of the program, puts the figure at $10 billion.
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2012 | 1758 Views :: 0 Comments |
April 12, 2012
In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by ANA member group Nuclear Watch New Mexico on March 28, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has released the Performance Evaluation Reports for its eight nuclear weapons sites. These reports are the government's scorecard for awarding tens of millions of dollars to nuclear weapons contractors, and were available to the public until 2009. But since that time NNSA has withheld them in a general move toward less contractor accountability.
Click the links below to download the Performance Evaluation Reports for each nuclear weapons site (PDFs) Note: the Sandia National Laboratory report is still undergoing review by the NNSA before it is released.
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| | | published Friday, February 10, 2012 | 3380 Views :: 2 Comments |
for release February 10, 2012
For further information: Katherine Fuchs (202) 544-0217
The overriding issue for the Monday, Feb. 13 budget release is: Will the Obama Administration continue to increase funding for unnecessary nuclear programs in light of current fiscal constraints? The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a national network of communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear facilities, is concerned that out of control spending on nuclear weapons and nuclear facilities will divert resources from legally required environmental cleanup, sustainable energy programs, and critical nonproliferation efforts. Here are some key questions that the Department of Energy (DOE) budget should address:
- In light of economic reality, will the Administration rein in funding for oversized, unnecessary nuclear facilities to produce plutonium and highly enriched uranium components for weapons? At a time when nuclear stockpiles are being cut, why does the US need expanded production capacity for plutonium pits (the fissile cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons) and highly enriched uranium (secondaries)? The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility would directly support production of plutonium pits, yet the JASONs determined that plutonium pits have a shelf life of 85+ years. The Uranium Processing Facility as planned is oversized and should be redesigned to dismantle warheads and down-blend uranium.
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| | | published Monday, January 23, 2012 | 1324 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following infographic was developed by the Project on Government Oversight to illustrate how many nuclear weapons and plutonium pits (the nuclear core of atomic weapons) currently our government currently holds in reserve. With so many nuclear components sitting in storage - why do we need to invest billions in producing more?
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