CRS Report: No Single Pit Production Option Will Meet Administration?s Goals

No single option for plutonium pit production would be able to meet the Administration’s goal of 80 pits per year, and therefore a “package of options” must be evaluated, according to a Congressional Research Service report released Friday. The National Nuclear Security Administration is moving forward with a new plutonium strategy that involves building modular facilities to house plutonium work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The report by CRS Nuclear Weapons Policy Specialist Jonathan Medalia evaluates 16 different options for increasing pit production, including process modifications, structural modifications and other alternatives. “One option by itself will not provide the capacity to manufacture pits at that rate,” the report states. “As a result, NNSA faces the prospect of assembling a package of options, whether from the ones presented here or others, and Congress faces the prospect of evaluating, perhaps amending, and approving it. Any package chosen would need to optimize among such goals as margin, cost, worker safety, and throughput.”