Nuclear Testing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

So I’ve been following Media Roots, a project devoted to citizen journalism and a socially responsible press, for about a year now. Abby Martin, the founder of the project, is an investigative journalist/ political scientist who became fed up with the mind-numbing news reports caused by corporate media ownership. The other day Media Roots released an interesting piece on the ‘non-existent’ nuclear testing at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. While the exposé was originally intended to explore the new computerized methods of nuclear testing, what was found was a bit more disheartening. According to the Media Roots report, the perceived ‘ban on nuclear testing’ is as much of a fallacy as the idea that war brings peace.

In accordance with the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the United States along with the USSR and UK agreed to prohibit all tests of nuclear devices in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. Despite the agreement, the Department of Energy has continued to test and develop nuclear weapons with the help of some fancy footwork and strategic wording. Let me give you an example: while watching the Media Roots report I was reminded of an Alliance for Nuclear Accountability publication about the ten most budget-busting Department of Energy projects for the upcoming decade. One of the projects, the National Ignition Facility, specifically stood out in my mind because it sounded like something out of Back to the Future.

The National Ignition Facility uses nuclear fusion science (aka lots and lots of laser beams) to essentially create a mini sun capable of solving many of the world’s energy problems. At least that’s how the project was initially sold to Congress and local representatives. According to a 2000 Government Accountability Office report only 15% of operations at the National Ignition Facility are devoted to non-weapons activities. The other 85%? You guessed it: nuclear weapons testing.

For a country committed to a world without nuclear weapons, we sure do put a lot of emphasis on warhead maintenance and development. Make sure you check out “Lawrence Livermore Lab & the Continued Nuclear Arms Race” at MediaRoots.org for more information on current nuclear tests.

Nuclear Power? No Way!

It has been about five months since I left the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation team to return to Savannah, Georgia to finish my degree in political science. Since the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima, I have been paying close attention to the post-disaster living conditions in the surrounding area; especially since one of NAPF’s former interns, Olivia, traveled to Japan for a study abroad. This past summer I specifically remember her researching the conditions in Japan and reassuring the NAPF staff that she would not be at risk for radiation exposure of any kind. We all felt a sigh of relief; if only it was that simple.

A recent article in the Economist revealed that living conditions following the Fukushima disaster were not as they seemed. A privately funded foundation, headed by Yoichi Funabashi, has been working on an investigation using the testimony of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) whistle-blowers. To make matters worse, sources note that the amount of radioactive materials released from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has actually increased since December. 48 out of the 54 nuclear reactors in Japan remain out of service due to safety concerns. If these facts do not make us question our own nuclear energy issues, I don’t know what will.

Within the United States, the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester County, New York has been a major source of controversy, and for good reason. Not only has New York Governor Cuomo advocated closing the plant for years, but also the Huffington Post recently disclosed that the plant’s location on a fault line makes it extremely susceptible to an earthquake or natural disaster. In the words of philosopher and poet, George Santayana, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

For more information on the dangers of nuclear power, check out NAPF’s “Nuclear Energy Issues” segment on Nuclear Files.org.

This Story Just Couldn't Wait

I'm currently working on the October issue of The Sunflower newsletter, which will be published on October 3. As with every issue of The Sunflower, this one is filled with important stories on key nuclear issues. But this story is so extraordinary, so brazen, that I just couldn't wait until Monday for people to read it.

Thanks to my colleagues in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth and Ralph Hutchison of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, for breaking this story.

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The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) have announced a plan to increase tritium production by 50% at the Watts Bar "civilian" nuclear power plant. Tritium is a key component of nuclear weapons, boosting the explosive power of fission and thermonuclear weapons.

In the announcement of the proposed 50% increase in production, NNSA also admitted that current tritium production is releasing three to four times the amount of tritium into the Tennessee River as originally estimated. NNSA also admits that tritium demand has been less than they originally expected.

Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said, "Our use of commercial nuclear facilities to produce nuclear materials for weapons has sent a powerful, clear and dangerous signal to the rest of the world. It has undermined our efforts to constrain weapons production activities, crossed a once-impermeable boundary [between civilian and military facilities], and diminished our security."

Hutchison also said, "With the likely prospect of additional arms control agreements, and budget constraints leading to calls for a reduction in the bloated US strategic reserve (the 5,000 or so warheads we keep in the garage in case we ever use up our 1,500 deployed warheads and need more), the need for tritium will continue to decline. Still these agencies are proposing a 50% increase in production!"

A Struggle for Democracy

Big things have been happening in Kansas City, Missouri over the past few months. For decades, the Kansas City Plant has manufactured the vast majority of non-nuclear components for the US nuclear arsenal. For the first time in the long history of nuclear proliferation around the world, a new plant was proposed that would be effectively owned by a city, financed through $815 million in municipal bonds. An inspiring group of citizens, calling themselves the Kansas City Peace Planters, has resisted this proposal with a welcome degree of success thus far.

The Peace Planters have engaged in civil disobedience at the construction site of the new plant, calling for the new plant to engage in green energy work instead of destructive nuclear weapons work. This has brought media attention to the issue and has increased public awareness of the outrageous proposal to build new nuclear weapons facilities 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

W78 Life Extension Program

There is a reason why only two people “like” the W78 Interest Page on Facebook. While these nuclear warheads are currently deployed on 200 Minuteman III missiles, the W78s may only be in service for another five years. So does that mean the National Nuclear Security Administration is planning their retirement? Not exactly. In a recent post I briefly discussed how the Department of Energy’s “Life Extension Programs” are just a fancy sounding way to increase the power and destructiveness of existing warheads rather than to “ensure that the nuclear stockpile remains reliable.” This is precisely the case with the W78 Life Extension Program.

According to a declassified study released by the NNSA, the W78 will have been deployed for more than 41 years by 2021. Somehow this fact justifies exploring the possibility of a new joint warhead approach (this is the part where “increase the power and destructiveness” comes in). In other words, instead of replacing the existing W78 that has already been extensively tested, the DOE wants to combine the W78 and W88 warhead to make an entirely new type of bomb.

Uranium Processing Facility

The expansion of the Cold War-era Uranium Processing Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee is the third, “Most Dangerous and Budget-Busting Project,” on the Department of Energy’s agenda. While the original proposal was estimated to cost around $600 million in 2005, scheduling delays and construction conflicts have prolonged the expansion and tacked on additional costs making it the most expensive bomb plant in history. To make matters worse the NNSA said that it won’t have a definitive price tag until the facility’s design is 90 percent complete.

New START vs. FY2011 Budget

In his Prague speech, President Obama proclaimed in order for the world to be free of nuclear weapons, the U.S. must spearhead a reduction of its nuclear arsenal. He won the hearts of many in the non-proliferation field when he stated that the U.S. would begin reducing its stockpile under his administration. How disheartening to us all, then, when we learned that his FY2011 budget reflected exactly the opposite. Far from committing funds for disarmament, he actually slashed the dismantlement program by 40%. By caving to conservative demands of modernization, Obama not only breaks his Prague promise, but acts against the spirit of New START.

New START is a follow-on to an agreement originally made between the U.S. and USSR to dismantle the relics of the Cold War, in order to build relations between the two adversaries, as well as reduce the risk of a nuclear accident. How strange then, that as the U.S. agrees to dismantle several hundred weapons with one hand, it funds the construction of weapons fuel facilities and Life Extension Programs (LEP) for aging arsenals with the other.