PANTEX NEARING COMPLETION OF B53 DISMANTLEMENT

The Pantex Plant is on the verge of completing the dismantlement of one of the largest nuclear weapons in the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the B53 nuclear bomb, and will commemorate the milestone next week in Amarillo, Texas. The plant began dismantling the B53 a year ago, and although only several dozen were believed to remain in the nation’s nuclear stockpile, the minivan-sized bomb presented significant challenges to workers tasked with taking it apart. In a ceremony expected to be attended by Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman and NNSA Principal Administrator Neile Miller, plant officials will complete the dismantlement of the weapon by detonating high explosives from the bomb at one of the plant’s firing sites, weather permitting.

Citing classification rules, the NNSA has not disclosed how many B53 bombs were dismantled since the project began in October of last year, but nuclear weapons expert Hans Kristensen of the Federal of American Scientists has estimated that 36 B53s remained when the bomb was removed from the nation’s nuclear arsenal in 1997. It has been replaced in large part by versions of the B61 bomb.