The SF Chronicle is
reporting.
An Energy Department task force has proposed a radical transformation of the nation's complex for producing nuclear weapons, recommending the manufacturing of a new generation of more flexible warheads at a single site that would consolidate activities previously done at plants across the country . . .
The report, in short, is a blueprint for a large-scale resuscitation of the nuclear weapons production system.
Make no mistake. This is both a "profound shift" from the way we've built nukes for 60 years and a radical, expensive ramping up of nuclear production at a time when we're saturated with nukes and proliferation is a major problem.
Also, they want to do this like a corporation.
"Successful businesses know when products and services are good enough, and recognize that cost is one of the metrics for excellent performance," the report says. "The complex must learn to balance quality, safety, security and cost in order to meet the needs of the nation in a cost-effective, appropriate manner."
We all know what a great record corporations have for ethics and environmental protections.
Also reporting is the WaPo.
The current complex keeps plutonium and highly enriched uranium, key nuclear materials, at six sites, a situation that the panel said "increases the number of potential targets within this country, exposing the complex and the surrounding civilian population to risk."
The new approach would eventually cut down the roles of the three national laboratories that design weapons: Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico, and Lawrence Livermore in California.
The panel found that the current policy to extend the life of the Cold War nuclear weapons stockpile through modernization "will eventually result in old weapons with some new components . . . that will require an extensive and ever-more-costly maintenance program."
The answer, according to the panel, is to proceed with design and production of a new family of nuclear weapons under "a new version" of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, now before Congress. "This family of weapons will form the basis of the sustainable stockpile of the future that will replace the current Cold War stockpile," the panel's report said.
These recommendations are now going before Congress. There is still time to act and get this in the news and put a stop to it.