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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Plutonium pits— carefully fabricated spheres of metal— and high explosives are the “triggers” for modern thermonuclear weapons. The U.S. manufactured pits at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver until 1989, when the FBI raided the facility to investigate environmental crimes, effectively ending industrial-scale plutonium pit production.
THE U.S. ALREADY HAS TOO MANY PITS
The U.S. presently has about 25,000 plutonium pits. Nearly 10,000 are in existing nuclear warheads. Five thousand are in “strategic reserve” and more than 10,000 “surplus” pits are stored at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX. The May 2002 Moscow Treaty requires Russia and the U.S. to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 2,200 or fewer deployed strategic warheads each by December 31, 2012, but fails to mandate irreversible dismantlement. Even under this treaty, he U.S. will likely retain some 25,000 pits.
Download PDF: ANA Pits final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
In the mid-1990’s the Department of Energy (DOE) embarked upon “Life Extension Programs”(LEPs) to refurbish and extend the “shelf life” of existing nuclear weapons. Under the LEPs, warheads in the current arsenal are disassembled, parts are refurbished or replaced with new components, and the warheads are reassembled and redeployed.
The purpose of the Life Extension Programs is to maintain an enduring nuclear arsenal. “Life Extension” adds at least 35-40 years to a warhead’s usable life, according to DOE (one official has been quoted at 100-120 years), and addresses aging issues of “limited life components.” LEP activities involve various parts of the warhead, from new or refurbished secondaries to the arming, fusing and firing mechanisms (LEPs do not involve new plutonium pit “triggers,” although “non-intrusive” work is done on existing pits).
Download PDF: ANA LEP final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
WANTED: U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY THAT SUPPORTS
NON-PROLIFERATION & GLOBAL DISARMAMENT OBLIGATIONS
The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) “entered into force” and became law in 1970. It is the most universal treaty of its kind in history, with 188 signatories. The NPT required the non-nuclear states that signed not to acquire nuclear weapons. In return, it obligated the states which already had nuclear weapons to negotiate the elimination of their arsenals. In May 2000, the U.S., along with other NPT signers, agreed to 13 steps to implement the Treaty’s disarmament obligations. These steps included “an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear-weapons states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals,” early ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a fissile material cutoff treaty, and a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies.
Download PDF: ANA disarm. final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
In spite of a decade of work on its program to eliminate surplus weapons plutonium, not a single gram has been disposed by the Department of Energy (DOE). By any standard, the program is a failure. Left unchanged, it will continue to suffer from chronic bad management, escalating costs, and technical uncertainties. A better alternative is for Congress and a new administration to put the disposition program onto the safer and less costly vitrification track.
Download PDF: ANA MOX final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Yucca Mountain, Nevada, is the only U.S. site under consideration for disposal of the nation’s high-level nuclear waste. Congress singled out Yucca Mountain in the 1987 amendments to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. The Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for implementing the program, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets radiation exposure standards, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for licensing the repository.
Download PDF: ANA Yucca final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Department of Energy (DOE) has asked Congress for $302 million in fiscal year 2009 for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which it also calls the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI). GNEP is a Bush Administration scheme to revive the dangerous practice of reprocessing irradiated nuclear fuel. GNEP would endanger the environment, encourage nuclear bomb-making, squander U.S. taxpayer dollars, and deepen the nuclear waste problem.
Download PDF: ANA GNEP final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program is a plan developed by the Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “for improving the long-term safety, reliability, and security of the nuclear weapons stockpile.” It has been used to justify a massive overhaul of the nuclear weapons production facilities now called “Complex Transformation.”
Last year, Congress zeroed out funding, clearly stating that it was “prohibiting” the development “of a Reliable Replacement Warhead until the President has a post Cold War strategic nuclear weapons plan necessary to guide transformation and downsizing of the stockpile and nuclear weapons complex.” Despite that message the administration came back with a budget request for FY 2009 that includes more than $40 million of funding connected to the RRW.
Download PDF: ANA RRW final.pdf
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| | | published Saturday, April 12, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
U.S. nuclear weapons research, testing and production activities have left dozens of Department of Energy (DOE) sites polluted with massive amounts of radioactive and hazardous wastes. Most DOE sites are now on the Superfund list of the nation’s most environmentally dangerous facilities. Their contamination threatens millions of people living near the sites or along major waste transportation routes. Some of the nation’s most important water resources are endangered.
Download PDF: ANA cleanup final.pdf
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Public Hearing on Nuclear Weapons Oak Ridge, TN 2008 | |
| | published Friday, February 15, 2008 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Oak Ridge Envirnonmental Peace Alliance
February 26, 2008
A Pivotal Moment for Peace
Even While Politicians fill the airwaves with great promises, our future is being written. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration is proposing to build a new nuclear weapons complex with billions and billions of your tax dollars. This plan--called "Complex Tranformation" will maintain an enduring nuclear stockpile and build new bombs in Oak Ridge and around the country.
Download PDF: CTrans fact sheet web.pdf
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| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2007 | 0 Views :: 0 Comments |
Nearly 2,000 nuclear weapons tests have been conducted worldwide. The U.S. alone conducted 217 above-ground tests, about half of them at the Department of Energy’s Nevada Test Site (NTS), from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. Atmospheric fallout from these tests, and from the 30 underground tests known to have “vented” significant radiation, contained harmful radionuclides and was carried thousands of miles from the test site. At the time, the U.S. government assured the American public that testing was safe and necessary to protect them.
Download PDF: Health FS 2007.pdf
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