The United States is spending $1.7 trillion to overhaul and modernize its aging nuclear arsenal to compete with weaponry developed by other countries. Part of this plan directs Los Alamos National Laboratory to produce new cores for nuclear weapons called “plutonium pits.”
But, a newly released report from the Union of Concerned Scientists argues for reusing existing cores from decommissioned weaponry to lower costs amid rising global nuclear tensions.
Reminiscent of the core of an apricot or peach, a plutonium pit is the trigger of a modern thermonuclear weapon. When imploded, it sets off a fission reaction that drives the destructive power behind the bomb.
These weapons are more than 20 times more potent than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 80 years ago.
Dylan Spaulding is a senior scientist in the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and the report’s head author. He said LANL is expected to create 30 of these cores per year by the mid-2030s.
“We don't think new pits are necessary at all,” Spaulding said. “Plutonium aging is often cited as a motivation for resuming pit production, but in fact, none of these new pits are intended to sustain the stockpile we have.”
The U.S. Department of Defense has said in the past that it wants to simply maintain the country’s nuclear stockpile, not expand it.
However, Project 2025, the leading conservative policy guide for President Trump’s second term, advocates for a significant arms expansion and an aggressive nuclear stance on the world stage.
Most of the time, these cores – which the U.S. has thousands of in storage – are viable for more than a century. Though, Spaulding said that the average age of this weaponry is around 40 or 50 years old.
“So, we don't need to worry about the lifespan of plutonium in the weapons we have,” Spaulding added.
The program, estimated to cost up to $38 billion just for pit production, has no complete cost estimate or schedule. In fact, the two sites where these pits are exclusively manufactured – Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility in South Carolina – face serious delays, budget overruns, and past safety issues.
While there won’t be a resumption of uranium mining for pit production for now, the report also highlights health and environmental risks among New Mexico’s Indigenous Pueblos and communities in South Carolina from plutonium production and waste.
In addition to reusing existing pits and assessing true costs, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ report proposes to instead focus on environmental cleanup and remediation at these manufacturing sites and to cancel new warhead efforts like the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program – which aims to produce over 600 new warheads and significantly update the nation’s nuclear infrastructure.
The current risk, the report states, is fueling an “already accelerating arms race” between the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea.
“The laboratories definitely have a place for innovation and for creativity,” Spaulding said. “But it would be preferable, in my view, if that were applied to other existential problems, rather than creating new existential threats.”
