NNSA “clear-eyed” about the work ahead on pits, acting boss says

ARLINGTON, VA — The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration is “clear-eyed about the work ahead” with its two-site strategy for plutonium pit production, NNSA’s acting administrator Terea Robbins told the opening of the 17th annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit Monday.

Much work remains over the next decade for NNSA to achieve its goal of having the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico produce 30 pits per year and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina make 50 pits per year, Robbins said.

NNSA anticipates Los Alamos will reach the “capability” to produce 30 pits annually “in or near 2028,” Robbins said. Likewise, construction of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility should be finished in 2032. Once construction is complete, nuclear material will have to be introduced with production in the mid-2030s.

Plutonium pits act as triggers inside nuclear warheads. From the 1950s through the 1980s, most U.S. pits were made at the now-dismantled Rocky Flats Plant near Denver.

Due to the growing cooperation between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, “the U.S. nuclear deterrent is more important than ever,” Robbins said. That’s part of the reason NNSA has more simultaneous weapons programs going currently than at any time since the Cold War.