The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is not saying whether the Los Alamos National Laboratory has met a legal requirement to produce “war reserve” plutonium pits needed to keep the U.S. nuclear warhead arsenal ready for deterrence or conflict.
Plutonium pits are the core of thermonuclear weapons.
Thousands of current warhead pits are old, and many need to be replaced. Los Alamos National Laboratory is currently the sole production facility for full-scale pit production. A second plant is being built in Georgia at the NNSA Savannah River complex.
Under a 2014 defense authorization law, NNSA, which runs Los Alamos, was required to produce at least 10 “war reserve” plutonium pits in fiscal 2024; at least 20 in fiscal 2025 and at least 30 in fiscal 2026, which began Wednesday.
Asked if the legal requirement was met, an NNSA spokesman declined to specify, citing classification reasons. “Los Alamos National Laboratory is establishing the capability to manufacture at least 30 pits per year,” the spokesman said.
Greg Mello, director of the nongovernment watchdog group Los Alamos Study Group, said both the Energy Department and the Los Alamos lab have been breaking pit promises since the 1990s.
Los Alamos produced one war reserve pit from October 2023 to October 2025 and since then there have been no further announcements on war reserve pit production.
In August, Energy Deputy Secretary James Danly ordered Energy Department and NNSA officials to launch a special study on plutonium pit production, suggesting there are problems.
Mr. Mello said the pit production is running six to eight years behind schedule and won’t reach the 30 per year level until 2030 or 2031.
“We have been told that in order to meet production deadlines despite delays, NNSA may use some recertified pits for its W87-1 [warhead] program, which had been touted as the first warhead NNSA would make since the Cold War with all-new parts,” the study group said in a release.
The new W87-1 is slated for deployment on the new Sentinel silo-based long-range nuclear missiles.
Mr. Mello told Inside the Ring the war reserve pit program “needs accountability.”
“$13 billion has been spent at Los Alamos National Laboratory so far, plus $5 billion at the Savannah River Site,” he said. “Where are the pits?”
Los Alamos and NNSA told Congress 10 pits would be made last year and 20 pits this year.
“And LANL has produced — how many? We don’t know. We know they made one last year.”
The pit production problems at this point do not affect the warhead stockpile. But LANL should have something to show for the billions spent so far, Mr. Mello said.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.