The Empire 471

US Nukes Agency Pushes New Bomb Production
Wednesday 30 September 2009
by: Matthew Cardinale | Inter Press Service

Atlanta, Georgia - Despite statements by U.S. President Barack Obama that he wants to see the world reduce, and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration continues to push forward on a programme called Complex Modernisation, which would expand two existing nuclear plants to allow them to produce new plutonium pits and new bomb parts out of enriched uranium for use in a possible new generation of nuclear bombs.

Initiated under the George W. Bush administration, Complex Modernisation - referred to by anti-nuclear activists as "the Bomb-plex" - would "transform the plutonium and uranium manufacturing aspects of the complex into smaller and more efficient operations while maintaining the capabilities NNSA needs to perform its national security missions," according to a report by the NNSA in the Federal Register.

"The main purpose of the Complex Modernisation programme is to maintain nuclear production capacity for the U.S.," Ralph Hutchison of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance told IPS, arguing that the talk of modernisation obscures the real objectives of the programme.

"There are pieces of the modernisation scheme that might address environmental safety or health concerns, or structural integrity of old buildings that might need to be looked at," he acknowledged.

But the more controversial aspect is the creation of a new nuclear production infrastructure at two sites. First is infrastructure for production of new plutonium pits - the central core of nuclear weapons - at the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico, to replace what the NNSA argues is an aging U.S. nuclear stockpile.

According to its 2009 10-year plan obtained by IPS, the new site could produce 80 plutonium pits per year.

Second, is expansion of enriched uranium processing at the Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

"Complex Modernisation" is the latest public relations slogan for the NNSA's plan; previously it was called Complex 2030 and then Complex Transformation.

The NNSA held two years of public hearings on the Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (SPEIS) it was required to produce under the National Environmental Policy Act for Complex Modernisation.

At a hearing attended by this reporter in November 2006 at the Savannah River Site in North Augusta, South Carolina - which was initially considered for the new plutonium pits production - NNSA spokesman Ted Wyka told IPS the agency wanted "to identify a site to build and locate a consolidated plutonium centre, a place where we're going to do manufacturing, production, as well as research and development and surveillance."

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/093009R