Los Alamos National Laboratory appeared more or less on track to recategorize one part of its planned plutonium complex as a hazard category three facility, allowing for increased storage of the fissile material there, according to a recent report by the government’s independent nuclear watchdog.
In February, Los Alamos prime Triad National Security wrapped up its contractor readiness review to recategorize the Radiological Laboratory/Utility/Office Building (RLUOB) as a hazard category 3 nuclear facility. The contractor tabbed a total of seven issues, four of which would be dealt with before startup and three after, according to a recent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report.
The government was scheduled to do its federal readiness review in May, DNFSB wrote. That’s about a month later than the agency’s projection from 2021.
RLUOB will be rechristened as the PF-400 facility and support analytical chemistry and materials categorization for the planned Los Alamos mission to produce multiple war-ready plutonium pits — nuclear-weapon triggers — beginning later this decade. RLUOB is classified now as a radiological facility and can legally accept just under 40 grams of plutonium at once. As a hazard category 3 facility, it could take about 10 times as much plutonium by weight. NNSA says the current categorization level can support preliminary pit-support activities at the lab.
Los Alamos plans to ramp up to 30 pits a year in 2026 as part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plan to produce 80 pits annually sometime next decade.
The agency faced a statutory deadline to start making multiple war-ready pits at Los Alamos by 2024, but senior officials have been cagey in public this year about whether they will hit that deadline.
“The real goal we can’t lose sight of is 30 pits a year in 2026,” Charles Verdon, the NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs, said in February.
Editor’s note, March 31, 2022, 12:59 Eastern time: the story was corrected to show the RLUOB’s current storage capacity for plutonium.
