In a virtual address to a gathering of nuclear weapons professionals on Thursday, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration touted the White House’s Nuclear Posture Review for its support of civilian nuclear weapon programs, advocated for more exports of peaceful nuclear-energy technology and said that Russia’s war in Ukraine has resurrected old nonproliferation fears.
The Joe Biden administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, not yet published in an unclassified form, “ is a full-throated endorsement of the work in NNSA [National Nuclear Security Administration],” Jill Hruby, the NNSA administrator, said in prepared remarks to the 16th annual Strategic Weapons in the 21st Century Conference.
The annual gathering is organized by the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and is usually held in Washington. The NNSA posted Hruby’s full remarks online.
In her speech, Hruby spoke broadly about NNSA’s plans to spend almost as much money refurbishing nuclear bombs and warheads in fiscal year 2023 as it plans to spend on rebuilding key production facilities designed to furnish the U.S. with plutonium pits and uranium-powered secondary stages for much of the rest of this century.
“When the nuclear enterprise was created during the Manhattan project, time was of the essence,” Hruby said. “It worked and has served us well, therefore we are reluctant to change anything. However, we need to institute modern practices, modern equipment, modern science – our enterprise should look completely different when we’re done.”
Hruby also spoke about the need, in the wake of Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine this century, to shore up domestic supplies of nuclear fuel and help pave the way for seamless exports of U.S. nuclear-energy technology, lest nations in need turn — more than they already have — to Russia and China.
“Ensuring that the world has access to fuel for nuclear power that is not dominated by Russia is a current supply chain focus in the Department of Energy,” Hruby said. “We hope to incentivize the domestic supply chain for Low Enriched Uranium needed by the current fleet and High Assay Low Enriched Uranium needed for the advanced reactor designs.”
Hruby also warned that Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, a protracted campaign that has brought violence to multiple nuclear power plants and facilities in that bulwark eastern European country, could increase the luster of nuclear weapons among countries fearful of their sovereignty.
Russia’s war “has raised questions about the elimination of nuclear arsenals in exchange for guarantees of its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Hruby said. “To offset the potential to draw the conclusion that acquiring nuclear weapons is necessary, we need to increase our efforts to assure our allies that our guarantees for their security remain ironclad and provide them confidence in the safety, reliability, and effectiveness of our nuclear arsenal.”
