LANL’S MCMILLAN: CMRR CUTS WILL IMPACT PIT PRODUCTION

With the Obama Administration deciding to defer the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility project for at least five years, Los Alamos National Laboratory will not be able to ramp up pit production, lab Director Charlie McMillan told employees in a lab-wide email yesterday. The multi-billion-dollar CMRR-NF was not designed to be used for pit production, but it would free up space in the lab’s Plutonium Facility to increase the production of the plutonium cores of nuclear weapons. “Regarding future program needs, our message to the government and to members of Congress has been clear: without CMRR, there is no identified path to meet the nation’s requirement of 50 to 80 pits per year,” McMillan said. “Assuming further investments in LANL facilities, we are confident we can deliver—but only a portion of that requirement.” The Obama Administration said that it would modify existing facilities, move some nuclear material, maximize the use of the lab’s new Radiological Laboratory-Utility-Office Building that was to be adjacent to the nuclear facility, and shift some plutonium work to other facilities in order to make up for the absence of the facility.