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| | | published Thursday, August 09, 2012 | 1813 Views :: 0 Comments |
Aug 8, 2012
By John Fleck From the Journal North
Los Alamos National Laboratory’s proposed alternative to building a multibillion dollar plutonium laboratory would require $800 million over the next decade to upgrade existing buildings to do the lab’s nuclear weapons work, according to lab documents.
The proposal includes doing work in a smaller existing laboratory, shipping some plutonium for chemical analysis to a lab in California, and construction of a $120 million tunnel to allow lab workers to move plutonium from building to building at Los Alamos without the security and safety risks associated with above-ground transport.
One small plutonium-capable lab building, the Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building, would require nearly $200 million in upgrades to handle larger quantities of plutonium, according to the proposal.
The lab developed what is being called “Plan B” after the Obama administration in February recommended halting work on a major new plutonium laboratory at Los Alamos. It represents the latest in a series of efforts by the lab and its federal managers to sustain the ability to maintain aging U.S. nuclear weapons and manufacture new weapon components if needed.
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2012 | 1719 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 Monday, April 09, 2012 | 1885 Views :: 1 Comments |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 4, 2012
Santa Fe, NM - In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by 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 previously available to the public until 2009. However, since that time the NNSA has withheld them in a general move toward less contractor accountability. We sought to help reverse that wrong direction through our litigation.
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| | | published Wednesday, September 07, 2011 | 2060 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following article highlights the work of ANA member group Healing Ourselves and Mother Earth, including a quote from the president of our Board of Directors, John Hadder.
Sep. 6, 2011
By Launce Rake
From The Nevada View
Continued nuclear, biological and conventional weapons testing? Renewable energy experiments and commercial solar power? Expanded transport, burial and storage of radioactive waste?
These are all potential outcomes from a review and re-set of activities at the federal Nevada Test Site, now formally known as the Nevada National Security Site.
Test Site Vision, a project of Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth, a national organization working to make information on the nuclear agency open to the general public, is encouraging public participation in the Test Site’s Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement.
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| | | published Monday, February 01, 2010 | 4097 Views :: 1 Comments |
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
McClatchy Newspapers
Fri, Jan. 29, 2010
The
Obama administration plans to ask Congress to increase spending on the
U.S. nuclear arsenal by more than $5 billion over the next five years
as part of its strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and
eventually rid the world of them.
The administration argues that
the boost is needed to ensure that U.S. warheads remain secure and work
as designed as the arsenal shrinks and ages nearly 18 years into a
moratorium on underground testing and more than two decades after
large-scale warhead production ended.
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| | | published Monday, October 19, 2009 | 1930 Views :: 1 Comments |
Comment of the Western States Legal Foundation on the scope of the proposed
Environmental
Impact Statement for the Continued Operation of the Department of
Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Test Site
and Off-Site Locations in the State of Nevada
Submitted by Jacqueline Cabasso, executive director
and Andrew Lichterman, senior research analyst
October 16, 2009
Introduction
Western
States Legal Foundation (WSLF) is a non-profit, public interest peace
and environmental organization which, since 1982, has participated in
administrative proceedings, litigation and grassroots advocacy to
promote the end of the nuclear race and global abolition of nuclear
weapons and cleanup of federal facilities engaged in nuclear weapons
research, development and production.
Since 1994, WSLF has
participated as an accredited Non-Governmental Organization (NGO)
observer in every Preparatory Committee meeting and Review Conference
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in Geneva, New York and
Vienna. In 1994, WSLF participated as an accredited NGO observer in
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) negotiations in Geneva, and in
2001 was an accredited NGO observer at the CTBT Entry-Into-Force
Conference at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Summary
The
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Continued Operation of the
Nevada Test Site (NTS) should include an alternative based on closure
of the NTS as a matter of good faith, in connection with the
anticipated Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT), and in consultation with the Western Shoshone National Council.
This analysis should separately examine alternatives for all nonnuclear
activities currently conducted at the NTS and off-site locations in
Nevada.
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| | | published Monday, October 19, 2009 | 2568 Views :: 2 Comments |
Tri-Valley CAREs’ Public Comment
on the Scope of the Proposed Environmental Impact Statement
for Continued Operation of the Dept. of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Test Site and Off-Site Location in the State of Nevada
Pursuant to The National Environmental Policy Act
October 16, 2009
To: Linda M. Cohn, NNSA Nevada Site Office
Nepa@nv.doe.gov
INTRODUCTION:
Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) is a non-profit organization located in Livermore, California. We have undertaken this analysis on behalf of our more than 5,000 members, including those who reside in Nevada near the Nevada Test Site (NTS).
Tri-Valley CAREs has monitored activities in the Dept. of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons complex, including the NTS for twenty-six years. Since its inception, Tri-Valley CAREs has participated in numerous National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) administrative review processes involving the nuclear weapons complex, including NTS. The organization has also participated in federal litigation to uphold NEPA at NTS and other sites in the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) complex.
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| | | published Monday, September 14, 2009 | 1941 Views :: 1 Comments |
Originally published at
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090910_a_hundred_holocausts_an_insiders_window_into_us_nuclear_policy/
Posted on Sep 10, 2009
By Daniel Ellsberg
Editor’s note: This is the first installment of Daniel Ellsberg’s
personal memoir of the nuclear era, “The American Doomsday Machine.”
The online book will recount highlights of his six years of research
and consulting for
the Departments of Defense and State and the White House on issues of
nuclear command and control, nuclear war planning and nuclear crises.
It further draws on 34 subsequent years of research and activism largely on nuclear policy , which followed the intervening 11 years of his preoccupation with the Vietnam War . Subsequent installments also will appear on Truthdig. The author is a senior fellow of theNuclear Age Peace Foundation .
American Planning for a Hundred Holocausts
One
day in the spring of 1961, soon after my 30th birthday, I was shown how
our world would end. Not the Earth, not—so far as I knew then—all
humanity or life, but the destruction of most cities and people in the
Northern Hemisphere.
What I was handed, in a White House office,
was a single sheet of paper with some numbers and lines on it. It was
headed “Top Secret—Sensitive”; under that, “For the President’s Eyes
Only.”
The “Eyes Only” designation meant that, in principle,
it was to be seen and read only by the person to whom it was explicitly
addressed, in this case the president. In practice this usually meant
that it would be seen by one or more secretaries and assistants as
well: a handful of people, sometimes somewhat more, instead of the
scores to hundreds who would normally see copies of a “Top
Secret—Sensitive” document.
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| | | published Friday, June 26, 2009 | 3725 Views :: 7 Comments |
17 Groups Urge Senate to Change CEDA Bill
06/25/2009
SustainableBusiness.com News
In
a letter to the members of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, 17 major groups--including the Union of Concerned
Scientists, the League of Conservation Voters and Sierra Club--warned
that the proposed Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA) in the
American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 will not "reduce
greenhouse gas emissions in the most efficient, environmentally sound
manner possible."
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| | | published Wednesday, April 08, 2009 | 6112 Views :: 1 Comments |
FOR RELEASE, April 8, 2009 Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505-989-7342 cell 505.920.7118 jay@nukewatch.org
Transforming the U.S. Strategic Posture and Weapons Complex
For Transition to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
“…as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act... So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” President Barack Obama, April 5, 2009, Prague, Czech Republic.
Washington, DC - - Today, April 8th, in the nation’s capital, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and the Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network released a major report outlining how the President’s vision of a nuclear weapons-free world can begin to be concretely realized in the near-term. First, the United States must declare that its strategic stockpile exists for only one purpose — to deter the use of nuclear weapons by others until the world is free of nuclear weapons. For that interim deterrence, a total stockpile of 500 warheads is more than sufficient, and the nuclear weapons complex can be downsized from eight sites to three.
Maintaining a Potent Deterrence
The U.S. stockpile has been extensively tested. Further, recent lifetime studies have shown it to be even more reliable than previously thought. The stockpile can be maintained through a nuts-and-bolts “curatorship” program, instead of the expensive and speculative “Stockpile Stewardship” Program that erodes confidence by intentionally introducing changes to existing nuclear weapons. Under a minimalist (but still extremely potent) nuclear deterrent, U.S. strategic forces can be progressively reduced step-by-step and the weapons complex downsized accordingly, in alignment with the President’s stated national goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Re-focusing Research Critical for the 21st Century
Our plan is the plan that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) under the Bush Administration should have proposed for its misnamed “Complex Transformation” – but did not. NNSA’s archaic plan is dead on arrival in the Obama Administration, while our plan sets a reasonable path for 21st Century security on which the U.S. can and should embark. Our plan takes the Lawrence Livermore Lab out of nuclear weapons programs and directs it toward the energy, environmental and global climate change research that our country so desperately needs. It also ends NNSA control of the Sandia Lab in California and the Nevada Test Site by 2012, and ends weapons work at the Kansas City Plant by 2015. As the arsenal is reduced toward 500 warheads, the Savannah River Site near Aiken, SC, and then the Y-12 Site near Oak Ridge, TN, would also cease to be part of the nuclear weapons complex.
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