QUOTE OF THE DAY
"War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left."
-- Unknown
If Bush and his bunch were sincere about nuclear arms reduction, they
wouldn't be reactivating the trigger manufacturing. This is very bad news.
U.S. Will Resume Production of Nuclear Warhead Triggers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, June 1 [breve] The federal government has
announced plans to resume production of plutonium "pits,"
which are used to trigger nuclear warheads, the Energy
Department has announced.
The department halted production of the softball-size plutonium
triggers in 1989.
"We need to have the capacity to manufacture certified pits to
maintain the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear
deterrent into the future," Secretary Spencer Abraham of the
Energy Department said on Friday.
Design work is beginning for the manufacturing plant, which is
expected to cost $2.2 billion to $4.4 billion, depending on its
production capacity, said a statement from the National Nuclear
Security Administration, which is part of the Energy Department.
The plant, to be built at a weapons facility, would start production
by 2020. The announcement from the Energy Department said
the site-selection process would begin in September.
The department relies on refurbishing triggers, as they are
needed, from disassembled warheads. That limited production,
done at the Pantex facility near Amarillo, Tex., cannot meet
long-term needs, officials said.
A recent study by the Bush administration urged construction of a
pit-production plant, and some members of both the House and
Senate have expressed concern that the lack of a such plant
could jeopardize future readiness of the country's nuclear
weapons stockpile.
Plutonium triggers were last produced at the Rocky Flats facility
in Colorado. That plant is being cleaned of radioactive waste.
Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright
law ( http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html ). All
copyrights belong to original publisher.
10:52:18 AM 
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