As the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration awaits its marching orders from the President Donald Trump administration, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is now saying it will get to an annual plutonium pit production goal of 30 “ASAP.”
Such pits are the triggers for thermonuclear weapons.
David Dooley, the associate laboratory director for weapons production at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), participated in a panel discussion on pit production at the 17th annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Arlington on Tuesday. In a brief interview after that discussion with Exchange Monitor’s affiliate publication Defense Daily, when asked whether ASAP (as soon as possible) was the target, Dooley replied, “It is ASAP.”
But the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) acting administrator Teresa Robbins told the summit that the agency’s goal was to have the “capability” to make the 30 pits at LANL “in or near 2028.”
NNSA said last year that it would begin producing 30 war-reserve plutonium pits annually at Los Alamos in 2028.
Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, has said that would meet military needs. Cotton was to speak to the Nuclear Deterrence Summit on Tuesday, but he is no longer on the schedule.
A version of this story was first published by Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily.
