https://ladailypost.com/nnsa-approves-critical-decision-1-for-savannah-river-plutonium-processing-facility/
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) has announced the approval of the Critical Decision 1 (CD-1) milestone for the recommended approach to produce at least 50 plutonium pits per year for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) project at the Savannah River Site (SRS).
So from what I hear LANL wants all the pit production. There is some talk that SRS cannot do it or will fail and all the money will have go toward LANL. The plan I think right now is to put every resource we can from LANL into pit work so when and if the time comes to chose between SRS and LANL (1) Either it all goes to LANL or (2) LANL will be abole to keep a good portion of the pit work for the foreseeable future. Right now the entire future of LANL rests on becoming a pit facility.
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
NNSA Approves Critical Decision 1 For Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility
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18 comments:
"Right now the entire future of LANL rests on becoming a pit facility."
People have been saying that for twenty years, it's never been true.
6/29/2021 5:48 PM
The future is now. It is pits or oblivion. We have no choice now, can we rise to the challenge and be pit facility or our we to be closed down? Everyone can do a part now, let the pit people be the best pit people they can be. If you cannot help than get out of the way. It is up to us, we can do it...pits or bust. Let me hear you now PITS!!!! It is Savana River or LANL only one can survive. Let it be LANL so hear me now and hear your own inner voice...PITS!!!!...here me PITS!!!....PITS!!!!! We are LANL we ARE PITS...PITS, PITS, PITS......
PITS!!!!!
PITS!!!!
PITS!!!!
Both Labs will fail at this phony “mission”. At Los Alamos this mission objective will continue to fail because you cannot compel first rate people to do second rate work. At Savanna River they will fail because they have no first rate people. Literally nothing hinges on this situation except the idea that we can beat the Chinese at a game they’ve already won. Cold War I went to the US. Cold War II is going to the Chinese. Pretend pits won’t change that outcome at all; it will merely give politicians a flag to wave.
"Both Labs will fail at this phony “mission”. At Los Alamos this mission objective will continue to fail because you cannot compel first rate people to do second rate work."
I think you have misunderstood the meaning of "fail". Sure that is true in terms of these places being able to actually build pits and the continued decline of 1st rate work at LANL, but the main goal of LANL is money. If lots of money can come in than this will be seen as success. You are right the whole thing is pretend but the money is real and that is the whole point of this anyway.
China probably will win because the US is now in a cold civil war where one half of society wants a woke version of China or a woke Soviet Union. Of course if that happens the "woke" part will be the first thing to be eliminated but they do not seem to realize that.
6/30/2021 8:00 PM
Your arguments are always over the top and supremely uninformed. Plus, your spelling and grammar mistakes. I don't know who you are, but I doubt you know much about LANL and I'm certain you know nothing about pits.
7/01/2021 5:17 PM
Well I was being a bit over the top for fun. There are very good arguments for new pits, there are good arguments for it being made at LANL, and there are even good arguments for having both LANL and Savannah River. The problem is if you know anything about what is driving this or how we are approaching it at LANL or other places it is more driven by money more than by anything else. I think if you going to commit having a large pit facility a LANL it might be better to have it as a separate entity than LANL itself or at least something that is much more independent of LANL. I could go over all the arguments why this would be better and these arguments have been made on this blog before. I could go over these again if you like. Already we are seeing that the pit future is strongly influencing big chunks of LANL, it is somewhat small now but every year it has been growing. Again the big driver for this is that pits are seen as cash, rather than pits need to be made and LANL should be a place to do it, how do we do to actually make good pits and maintain all of the other work LANL does and how to make sure we will have everything we need into the far future. This is not the approach, it is about how to get the money in next 5 years and how to get to be as big as possible because bigger means more money. The thinking is much more like business rather than a scientific lab or even a weapons manufacturing site. This is also of course influenced by New Mexico politics which has had an increasing role over the last 15 years. Once LANS got in New Mexico politics was also brought in because guess what...money.
"but I doubt you know much about LANL and I'm certain you know nothing about pits."
I doubt you know much about LANL or even what a pit is.
From Greg Mello in the Santa Fe Newspaper.
We can all say "pits should not be made," and some of us have spent much of our lives doing so, but that and $3.00 MIGHT buy a cup of coffee. Unfortunately, supporting pit production at LANL -- or standing aside, as Ms. Morgan does -- means supporting pit production in SC as well. It means, that is, investment in TWO pit factories, whereas the opposite is not true. The Savannah River Site and facilities would suffice, as NNSA found, under leadership appointed by Obama. SRS is far better from every perspective, including total and life-cycle pit production costs, environmental justice (mentioned in the article), public health risks, and program risks. LANL pit production requires SRS production also. Somehow these NGOs think they can fool the Pentagon, NNSA, and congressional hawks into choosing the worst site as the only site.
https://www.lasg.org/letters/2021/nm_7Jun2021.html
Key pit production talking points; some progress in DC in killing LANL pit production; important article on co-optation and destruction of U.S. disarmament movement
Pit production is a crucial part of the proposed $2 trillion (pp. 6-13) that the Biden Administration is doing its part to spend on nuclear weapons over the next 30 years.
To summarize the pit situation afresh:
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) hopes to spend more than $10 billion on infrastructure and start-up costs to begin industrial pit production at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) over the next 6-8 years, and a billion or so every year after that for as long as LANL produces pits;
Each pit LANL makes will cost in the neighborhood of $50 million; the Congressional Budget Office estimates (p. 14) every other part in a warhead including final assembly will cost $9 to $14 million; using LANL pits will double or triple overall warhead cost;
Producing pits at LANL also requires building a factory in South Carolina but the reverse is not true, as the SC facility would suffice; producing pits at LANL will also require additional facilities at LANL;
The estimated price tag for the SC factory has more than doubled to about $11 billion, and the more realistic schedule NNSA predicted in 2017 is now admitted again (p. 2 here: "2033 at the earliest"; slide 9 here: "2029-2036"; compare Hruby testimony of 5/27/21 at 56:55, background provided at note 1 here);
The only reason to proceed with pit production at LANL is to facilitate production of a brand-new warhead for silo-based missiles, which is altogether unnecessary;
In short the Trump "dual-factory" pit plan is based entirely on contractor greed, geopolitical panic, engineering and management fallacies, and a desire to placate Democratic Party senators, led by Heinrich and at the time Udall, who wanted a pit factory at LANL.
9:47, since you are obviously not a native speaker, allow me to concisely state your argument in English. Pits equal money.
Here’s a little tip for Greg Mello. Greg, NOBODY wants a world with nuclear weapons (and by extension, “pits”). Get off of your sanctimonious high horse and realize that the choice isn’t between a world with nuclear weapons and one without, but between a world with nuclear weapons and a world with tyranny in every land and home.
I doubt you know much about LANL or even what a pit is.
7/02/2021 5:34 PM
Oh, I've known for about 40 years, at the SRD level.
You people who criticize pits and cash have no clue. LDRD is funded by taxing programmatic work. More pits means more research dollars. You can only do so much research on machining a 60 year old pit design. This, more actual research dollars will be spent. Plus, pits are good for keeping the Chinese and other countries in line. It's called a win win, except for our enemies. Sorry, it doesn't conform to woke ideology, but neither does reality. The lab just plays lip service to wokeness as a recruiting tool. Get a clue.
"LDRD is funded by taxing programmatic work. More pits means more research dollars. "
Ha, ha, ha, did you see the last LDRD round? LDRD is now starting to fund essentially programmatic work. More pits does not mean "more" research dollars, all that will happen is that there will be a new LDRD pillar made just for pits which will just be a way to funnel the money right back into the pit wok. LDRD has already become increasingly program focused and has moved further and further away from the initial foundations of why LDRD was even started in the first place. I have only seen some posts about how "more pits" means "more science"! on this blog. No one believes this at the lab. So even if what you are saying is true LDRD will simply be redefined in way to change what one means by "research".
7/04/2021 1:25 PM
Didn't get the "pure research" funding you wanted, eh?
"but between a world with nuclear weapons and a world with tyranny in every land and home."
Half the United States pretty much wants tyranny anyway, young people are starting to see hate the Bill of rights, just let tyranny reign and be done with. In other words Mello is right why not just give up the pits, it is sort of pointless anyway. If you really buy that the white supremacy is the biggest threat to the US than we do not need pits or any of the NNSA labs? I think Victor Hansen about right as to the future for the US.
Our adversaries can’t quite believe their good fortune. Had they thought up ways to divide and impoverish America, to see its cities burned, and looted, to weaken its economy and currency, to erode the unity of its once feared military, and to entrench the most effective critics of America in America—not in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang, or Tehran, but in corporate boardrooms, campuses, newsrooms, Hollywood, Wall Street and the Pentagon—they could not have improved on what has happened in 2020-21, the era of our collective meltdown. We can conclude America’s richest are placing their bets on a Chinese-Communist controlled 21st century, and will adjust accordingly.
7/05/2021 11:17 PM
You are just a bit "out there." Try to stick to reality.
I would not discount Savannah River. A year ago, people on this blog were saying they would never let SRS produce pits but here we are with an approved CD-1. Some say SRS has lost its production skills but they have been processing Pu and extracting and refining tritium for decades. Most of all, the local politicians, public, and workforce welcome the mission. LANL and the local community is divided on the topic at best.
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