New Union of Concerned Scientists Report – Plutonium Pit Production: The Risks and Costs of U.S. Plans to Build New Nuclear Weapons
Dylan K. Spaulding, author of the new report, is a senior scientist in the Union of Concerned Scientists Global Security Program. He holds an undergraduate degree in physics from Brown University and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on technical issues related to nuclear stockpile stewardship and policies that can reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons. https://www.ucs.org/about/people/dylan-spaulding
The report was released this week while the Department of Energy held two virtual public meetings to receive comments about the scope of the court-mandated Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production. With the current deadline for public scoping comments on Monday, July 14, 2025, now is the time to read Spaulding’s informative and damming report about the increasing risks and costs of DOE’s 60 year plan to build new nuclear weapons. Many sections are devoted to on-going and cumulative issues at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Through interviews with downwind and downstream Peoples, the impacts of past, present and future impacts are discussed.
Spaulding provides an overview of the report by stating:
“The United States is planning a $1.7 trillion overhaul of its entire nuclear arsenal, designing new warheads and investing in new bombers, missiles, and submarines to carry them. The new warheads, in turn, are driving demand for new plutonium “pits”—the bomb cores that begin the chain reaction in every US thermonuclear weapon—despite the fact that the United States has thousands of surplus pits in reserve.
“Producing new pits would not only be expensive, time consuming, and logistically challenging, but is also technically unnecessary and politically destabilizing. It would actually decrease national security by encouraging a new arms race. In addition, a rushed program will likely increase health risks to workers and communities.
“Science shows we can count on the reliability of existing plutonium pits. There are other ways to improve security without the risks and costs of producing new pits.” https://www.ucs.org/resources/plutonium-pit-production in English and Español.
IMPORTANTLY: DOE’s future plans for expanded plutonium pit production will not maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Expanded pit production will be for new design nuclear weapons and a costly and deadly nuclear arms race.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is requesting DOE to conduct a thorough evaluation of all plutonium pits in the current stockpile, provide an inventory of those pits, and conduct a new study about how plutonium “ages,” among other issues.
For more information about submitting comments: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/05/09/2025-08140/notice-of-intent-to-prepare-a-programmatic-environmental-impact-statement-for-plutonium-pit
- Join us on Friday, May 30rd from noon to 1 pm
at the intersection of East Alameda and Sandoval for the weekly one-hour peaceful protest for nuclear disarmament and against expanded plutonium pit production at LANL. Join the weekly peaceful protest with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, New Mexico Peace Fest, Pax Christi and others. Bring your flags, signs and banners in support of nuclear weapons disarmament.
- APPLY BEFORE JUNE 1, 2025:
#Hiroshima Prefecture and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (#ICAN) will hold the Hiroshima-ICAN Academy on Nuclear Weapons and Global Security 2025. This year’s overall theme is “Building peace in times of change,” as armed conflict rages in many places around the world today.
Application process is open till June 1, 2025. https://www.icanw.org/2025_hiroshima_ican_academy
- SAVE THE DATE – SATURDAY, JULY 19TH – 46TH
ANNUAL URANIUM TAILINGS SPILL COMMEMORATION. https://swuraniumimpacts.org/
Tags: Department of Energy, DOE, LANL, Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA, Notice of Intent to Prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production, PEIS for P3, PEIS for Plutonium Pit Production, Plutonium Pit Production: The Risks and Costs of U.S. Plans to Build New Nuclear Weapons, Union of Concerned Scientists
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