Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
10/23/2015
Officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its national laboratories this week highlighted the role of recruitment and retention of scientists and engineers as critical components of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, the NNSA’s initiative to maintain the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without full-scale nuclear testing.
The U.S. nuclear enterprise has “one of the most talented, highly motivated workforces assembled anywhere, anytime,” NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said at an agency anniversary event celebrating 20 years since the program’s inception. “They are the stewards in stockpile stewardship.” To address future challenges related to aging nuclear weapon components and materials, Klotz said the Department of Energy (DOE) is taking steps that include recapitalizing its critical infrastructure and “developing the next generation of leaders, scientists, and nuclear policy professions.”
NNSA lab directors also emphasized the need to continue recruiting and retaining top talent. Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) Director Jill Hruby said the site has addressed the issue by encouraging young technical talent to participate in a wide variety of national security programs, for the NNSA and other government agencies. “By doing this, what we have found is a very interesting ability to stay at the state of the art, translate it into the high-reliability applications of nuclear weapons, and go back around again,” she said, adding that SNL has hired a third of its workforce in just the past five years.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Director Bill Goldstein highlighted “professional fulfillment” as a key component to encourage the younger generation of engineering talent to join and remain at the labs, while Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Director Charles McMillan recalled that “the passion that I have seen in [LANL’s workforce] to the mission of the laboratory is what gives me confidence” in the success of stockpile stewardship. “It’s important to maintain that sense of purpose,” he said.
Officials Celebrate 20 years of Stockpile Stewardship
The Stockpile Stewardship Program, which was implemented in the fiscal 1994 National Defense Authorization Act under President Bill Clinton, followed 40 years of the Cold War, during which “the U.S. produced approximately 70,000 nuclear warheads, deployed over 70 types of nuclear warheads, and conducted over 1,000 nuclear explosive tests,” according to the NNSA. Under the new strategy that shifted DOE labs’ vision “from a nuclear explosive test-based confidence model to one of science-based ‘validated simulation,’” new projects to preserve technical capabilities were initiated: LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, LANL’s Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility, and SNL’s Microsystems Engineering Sciences Application Facility.
Klotz noted the program was initially met with skepticism because of “many unanswered technical and policy questions: Could nonexplosive experiments yield the right kind of data needed to certify the stockpile? Would the nation be willing to make the necessary resource commitments over an extended period of time?”
The answer, he said, is yes: “Today we can simulate every aspect of a nuclear weapon, from the physics that drive its detonation to the character of its explosive yield and output. In fact we now have more detailed knowledge about how nuclear weapons work and how nuclear weapons age than was possible to learn through nuclear explosive testing.” Goldstein agreed: “There’s no question that the science has succeeded and it’s succeeded beyond the most optimistic expectations at the time.”
Secretary of State John Kerry said stockpile stewardship has been “a benefit to the environment, a benefit to our security, and extremely helpful in the context of America’s global leadership.” He lauded the program for enabling President Barack Obama “to commit our nation to a continued reduction in nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of their elimination worldwide.”
Kerry Calls for Renewed CTBT Ratification Push
In his remarks Kerry urged ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the agreement banning all nuclear explosive testing. The Senate rejected ratification in the late 1990s, and the Obama administration has not formally brought the matter back to the Senate. Criticizing the current lack of support for treaty ratification in Congress, Kerry said “the factors that led some senators to oppose the treaty in 1999 have changed, and so choices should change as well.”
Uncertainty about the effectiveness of nonexplosive testing and the inability to verify other nations’ compliance with the treaty were major factors that are no longer valid due to ongoing stockpile stewardship and the international verification regime that exists today, he said.
Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz echoed these comments, noting that the CTBT treaty “faced serious skeptics . . . not unreasonably.” He praised the innovation and scientific advances that have carried the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which served as one of the CTBT treaty safeguards outlined in the U.S. Senate ratification package. “Nothing about this program was guaranteed to succeed,” he said.
