Nuclear Bunker Buster funding HALTED

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

A bit of good news for a change
----

http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=401

Nuclear Bunker Busters Are Dangerous, Ineffective, and Unneeded

On October 26, Pete Domenici, Republican Senator from New Mexico and chairman of the committee that oversees the budget of the Department of Energy, announced that Congress is halting funding on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), or “nuclear bunker buster,” at the request of the Administration. The effort will be transferred from the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons lab to the Department of Defense, which will seek conventional, non-nuclear solutions for this military mission.

This is a major victory for a saner nuclear policy. There was widespread confusion in the public and press about nuclear bunker busters (confusion that the Administration did little to correct). A remarkable number of reports conflated nuclear bunker busters with so-called “mini-nukes.” Putting aside for the moment that a “mini” nuclear weapon is defined as one with an explosive yield of five thousand tons of TNT, or one third the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, the bunker busters were genuinely gigantic bombs. The largest being considered had a yield of 1.2 million tons of TNT. The other misconception was that the bombs would burrow deep inside the Earth before detonating, substantially reducing effects on the surface. In fact, the bombs would penetrate at most only a few meters into rock, causing no reduction in blast, fire, or fallout damage on the surface. The largest RNEP would have blown out a crater almost a thousand feet across and thrown a cloud of radioactive fallout tens of thousands of feet into the air where it would be blown hundreds of miles downwind.

-snip-

NOTE: This web page includes an interesting Quicktime explanation

[johnaries]

1. The Union of Concerned Scientists agrees.

"The proposed weapon, more than 70 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, would have caused unparalleled death and destruction," said Rob Nelson, UCS' Senior Scientist. "The bunker buster would not have performed many of the missions for which its supporters claimed it was needed, while spreading intense nuclear fallout over thousands of square miles."

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/sen-domenici-drops-the-bomb.html

[EFerrari]

2. This is terrific news! All those calls and emails sometimes pay off.

Thanks!

[punpirate]

3. I've been posting another article from FAS...

... on precisely this subject off and on for some time now.

What this article doesn't mention is that while Congress may not be funding this any longer through the DOE and the lab system, the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review has remained unchanged, and it was in that document that nuclear policy included so-called "mini-nukes" and the use of nuclear weapons on non-nuclear countries. That 2002 NPR was generated by the very folks who are now in charge of the program. I don't find that very comforting, especially as fungible as DoD money has become, as well as Congress' current tendency to do little oversight of DoD spending.

This change of agencies may turn out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Skink]

4. What do we need NBB's when we have white phosphurus.

[bigtree]

5. What we need to watch for is funding for plutonium pits for mini-nukes

Reuters, in October 2002, reported that the Bush administration is proceeding with their plans to promote and push for the expansion of the nation's nuclear arsenal with the unveiling of an initiative produced by the ‘Defense Science Board'. (http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb)

The supporting document, named the “Future Strategic Strike Force”, outlines a reconfigured nuclear arsenal made up of smaller-scale missiles which could be targeted at smaller countries and other lower-scale targets. The report is a retreat from decades of understanding that these destructive weapons were to be used as a deterrent only; as a last resort. (http://www.csbaonline.org/4Publications/Archive/R.20010300.The_Transformation/R.20010300.The_Transformation.htm)


In September 2003 the Senate went along with a White House push to reduce the preparation time required for nuclear testing in Nevada; clearing the way for a resumption of nuclear test explosions which have been banned since 1992. It seeks to cut the time it would take to restart testing nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert from three years to two years. The Bush administration wants the period cut to 18 months. (http://www.cndyorks.gn.apc.org/news/articles/testingtoresume.htm)


The draft of the Energy bill that was presented in 2004 would provide $11 million for a new factory to make plutonium "pits" for the next generation of nuclear weapons. Most modern nuclear weapons depend on a plutonium pit as the "primary" that begins the chain reaction resulting in a thermonuclear explosion. A pit is a critical component of a nuclear weapon and functions as a trigger to allow a modern nuclear weapon to operate properly.

The Department of Energy announced on September 23, 2002, its intent to begin an examination of several possible sites for a Modern Pit Facility to produce plutonium pits for new and refurbished nuclear weapons. (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=2002_register&docid=02-24076-filed)

The United States is the only nuclear power without the capability to manufacture a plutonium pit. About three-fourths of the U.S. surplus plutonium is relatively pure in the form of so-called pits, which have been removed (and deactivated) from existing warheads. The remaining fourth of the surplus was in the process pipeline, mostly as plutonium residues, when processing was suddenly discontinued. The Soviet government processed all of its material to completion, so now all of the Russian surplus is in the form of pits or its weapon-form equivalent.

The Foster Panel Report, also known as the FY2000 Report to Congress of the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile, found that it could take 15 years from the point of developing a conceptual design for a pit facility until the final construction of the facility is completed.

The report stated that, "If it is determined through the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program that one or more of our existing pit designs is no longer reliable, and therefore is not certifiable, our nuclear stockpile would, in effect, be unilaterally downsized below a level which could maintain a strong nuclear deterrence." (http://www.cdi.org/issues/testing/sbss.html)

That is the hook which supporters of an expanded nuclear program will use to justify an abrogation of the treaty ban, and begin their new-generation arms race. If they don't get their way - to fiddle with and refurbish the existing nukes - they will argue that deterrence is at risk; a preposterous notion, as our existing arsenal is more than enough to blow us all to Pluto.

Meanwhile, the DOE has requested $22 million for the MPF in its Fiscal Year 2004 budget request and Congress has funded the request in the House and Senate versions of the Defense Authorization bill. But, the House cut over half of the funding for the MPF citing the Bush administration's failure to issue revised stockpile requirements following the ratification of the Moscow Treaty.

Citing "classified analyses" the DOE claims it needs to have a new pit facility capable of producing 125-500 pits per year. The DOE's Notice of Intent for the MPF also states that one of the functions for the facility will be to have the ability to produce new design pits for new types of nuclear weapons.

If new money is released, the nuclear weapons laboratories are expected to refurbish the casings on the existing nuclear B-61 and B-83 warheads, according to Energy Department official Everett Beckner, Lockheed's former man in the U.K., who testified before a Senate committee in March. Beckner claims that both weapons have yields "substantially higher than five kilotons," so he has determined that the study will not violate a 1994 U.S. law prohibiting research on "low-yield" nuclear weapons.

The last U.S. facility for manufacturing nuclear triggers closed in 1989.

This isn't over, not by a long shot.

[punpirate]

6. If I'm not mistaken...

... there is still some pit-producing capacity at Los Alamos which was previously used for experimental designs. Some money was given the lab several years ago to do limited production there. But, yeah, the big facility at Rocky Flats is now shut down.

I'm also pretty sure that there was money appropriated to start up the tritium reactor at Savannah River, as well.

Truth is, though, we don't really need to do much further research on small nuclear weapons--there was quite a bit of that done in the `50s and `60s. When you start going below the yield of the Davy Crockett, you're just about ready to build nuclear hand grenades.