Plutonium makes its way out of Livermore

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Mar 28, 2008 | by Betsy Mason

LIVERMORE -- Another shipment of weapons-grade nuclear material has made its way out of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the National Nuclear Security Administration reported Thursday.

Together with two previous shipments, this brings the total amount of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium down 25 percent.

The time and method of such shipments are not released.

The lab is on track to completely shed its nuclear material by 2012 as part of the NNSA's plan to consolidate the material at fewer sites to reduce the cost of protecting it.

The recent shipment went to the Savannah River Site in North Carolina, but the type of plutonium work that currently is done at Livermore Lab will be done at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the future.

"I've come to the conclusion that the country only needs one main plutonium capability," NNSA Administrator Thomas D'Agostino said last week. "You don't have communities growing up around Los Alamos."

The 2012 goal is two years sooner than the previous plan, and D'Agostino said that is the soonest it can be done because of ongoing research at Livermore Lab and the need to move it safely.

In the meantime, the plutonium is adequately protected, he said, but the lab will not get the same permanent security upgrades that other sites are getting, because the material will be moved.

But critics contend that it isn't safe now and could all be safely removed two or three years earlier.

"The plutonium is vulnerable today to a catastrophic release in an earthquake or terrorist attack," said Marylia Kelley of Tri- Valley CAREs at a public hearing last week on the NNSA's plan to revamp the nuclear weapons complex. "It can be taken out by 2010 safely."

The amount of nuclear material the lab currently has is classified, but four years ago it requested to double the amount of plutonium it is allowed to have to 3,300 pounds.

Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach her at 925-952-5026 or bmason@bayareanewsgroup.com.