Santa Fe, NM – Today, the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported:
“Santa Fe city leaders asked for developers’ ideas on what to do with the city-owned midtown campus…The National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA], which administers the Los Alamos National Laboratory management and operating contract, submitted a master developer proposal to build an open-campus environment with administrative offices, sustainable green spaces, engineering space, light manufacturing, training facilities and research and development…
[A NNSA spokesperson said] “LANL is undergoing unprecedented growth and expects to hire more than 1,000 new personnel annually for the next several years. Having a new campus — midway between New Mexico’s two national laboratories [LANL and Sandia]— to house professional staff, scientists, and engineers in partnership with the city of Santa Fe — would be very beneficial.” ”
LANL’s growing jobs are primarily for expanded production of plutonium pits (the radioactive triggers of nuclear weapons) which helps to fuel the new global arms race. Over the last decade the Santa Fe City Council has passed three different resolutions against expanded plutonium pit production. Seventy percent (and growing) of LANL’s ~$2.6 billion annual budget is for core nuclear weapons research and production programs, while the remainder directly or indirectly supports those programs. In contrast, LANL’s renewable energy budget is .007% of its nuclear weapons budget and the Lab has zero dedicated funding to fight climate change. Moreover, LANL claims that its cleanup is more than half complete, intentionally omitting that it plans to leave ~150,000 cubic meters of toxic and radioactive wastes permanently buried uphill from the Rio Grande and above our common groundwater aquifer.
Just this last Sunday Pope Francis called for the abolition of nuclear weapons while in Japan paying homage to the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Those atomic bombs were designed and produced at the Los Alamos Lab.
The City of Santa Fe’s official name is the “La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís” (“The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi”), in honor of the beloved saint who preached peace and environmental protection and from whom the present Pope draws his name. It would be supremely ironic if the City of Santa Fe hosted a satellite campus for a massive institution that spends 2 billion dollars (and counting) every year on nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commented, “Mayor Webber and the Santa Fe City Council surely know that the institutionalized presence of a nuclear weapons production laboratory in our city would generate a tremendous amount of controversy, a controversy they could well do without. The leaders of the City of Santa Fe should nix LANL’s proposal for a satellite campus in our town as a nonstarter and an affront to St. Francis de Assisi, the saint of peace.”
8 comments:
Pit production in downtown Santa Fe, works good to me.
"In contrast, LANL’s renewable energy budget is .007% of its nuclear weapons budget and the Lab has zero dedicated funding to fight climate change"
I can tell you for a fact that these numbers are wrong. LANL has at least 240 people dedicated to renewable energy, in fact LANL is one of the leaders in quantum dot technology with a particular emphases on energy conversion. This is work is known world wide and can be checked by anyone with a computer, just type in quantum dot and LANL.
LANL also has at least 100 or 150 people dedicated to climate modeling with emphases on climate change, in fact they have something called "climate security" at LANL with a focus on future climate directions. This works also is connected with the large scale computing at LANL and is a natural direction.
So with that I get close to 300-400 people working on these topics, which is at least 5-7% of the lab budget. This may not sound like much but is about 1000 times more than what is posted. This is not to mention all the large scale computing advances which again I know for fact has been used for climate change modeling.
Whoever said 0.007 and 0 percent is wrong, plain wrong. It is FAKE NEWS.
I assume this crap coms form the LANL study group. They make themselves look like fools by getting basic facts wrong time and time again which can be proved false with 5 min Google search.
Having a LANL footprint in Santa Fe makes sense in terms of science that the left leaning people would approve of, would add much needed jobs to people who actually are born and raised in New Mexico. (Unlilke Mello). In sum it improves society through science and helps locals. To be against this is crazy and shows a profound disrespect for local New Mexicans. I have approved of LANL studies group of social justice, but in this case they are against social justice because they will discourage work on renewable energy, they are against research in climate change, and they do not care about locals of New Mexico being able to get jobs that help their families and help the world.
In the words of GOT , Shame....Shame....Shame...Shame...Shame on the LANL study group, Shame on the LANL study group, Shame on Greg Mello.
The LANL study group has now become the enemy of the people, have turned on justice for the environment, the local worker,
and new energy sources.
When one fights monsters, one must take care not to become a monster.
This is a great idea. Relocate most of the administrative support to Santa Fe to free up space and lower cost of living. It would also help attract people without school aged kids who want to live in a more urban area. But I'm sure the crazies in Santa Fe, who sue their neighbors for using cell phones that emit RF, will go ape thinking LANL is going to be making pits in the plaza.
There are many people at in Santa Fe that deep in their heart hate the people of New Mexico...just look at who they vote for and look at the outcome. Think about the people born and raised in New Mexico, who work at LANL and Sandia do you want a bunch of people from NYC who moved to Santa Fe to dictate what is best for the locals?
Coghlan and Mello do not represent New Mexico. For some reason, the lame stream, Santa Fe New Mexican is too lazy to call anyone who does. Their loss. The world will move forward without them.
I have one word for Greg Mello and Jay Coghlan; "Move"
Ironically, and perhaps inline with their true character, Jay and Greg cannot even stand each other.
do you want a bunch of people from NYC who moved to Santa Fe to dictate what is best for the locals?
11/28/2019 1:40 AM
Actually, more likely from San Francisco, Portland, or Seattle. All the "woke" progressives and trust-fund brats.
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