Just 40 miles from San Francisco, nestled in a sea of rapidly growing suburbs, is the Lawrence Liver- more National Laboratory (LLNL). Most residents are unaware that the Lab has been a major cornerstone of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex since 1952. Fewer still realize that since September 11, 2001 Livermore Lab has intensified its work on technologies that will support the creation of new nuclear weapons. 

The Livermore Lab is owned by the Department of Energy (DOE) and operated by the University of California. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is the semi-autonomous agency within DOE that is responsible for the design, development, and maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons. In April 2005, NNSA issued the Final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for the next decade of research at Livermore. 

First Strike Strategy 

Since September 11, 2001, the United States has pushed its official nuclear weapons policy in a dangerously aggressive direction. The January 2002 Nuclear Posture Review is a major policy document that calls for new battlefield nuclear weapons and the re-targeting of the U.S. nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear states. 

While the U.S. has never taken serious steps towards nuclear abolition, the Review represented a radical shift away from the disarmament and non-proliferation rhetoric of past Administrations. The Review does state that the U.S. intends to draw down the number of operationally deployed strategic warheads from 6,500 to 1,700-2,100 by 2012. A genuine reduction of the nuclear arms stockpile would entail the decommissioning and destruction of thousands of warheads. However, neither the Review nor the 2001 Moscow Treaty mandates the actual dismantling of nuclear weapons. The U.S. is thus permitted to place “retired” warheads into storage for potential future use and it is likely that only a small portion of the over 10,000 warheads in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile will actually be dismantled. 

The Review calls for a “revitalized” nuclear weapons complex that has the capability to design and produce new warheads and that will be able to resume underground nuclear weapons testing. To achieve this goal, the Review requests a massive expansion of nuclear weapons research and production facilities. The plan would allow NNSA to almost double the number of warheads that it can refurbish in a single year. This policy flies in the face of U.S. obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which calls on signatory nuclear states to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.” 

The “revitalization” also includes preparations in anticipation of a possible return of U.S. nuclear testing. The Review states, “While the United States is making every effort to maintain the stockpile without additional nuclear testing, this may not be possible for the indefinite future.” The Bush administration has made no effort to conceal its hostility towards the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Livermore Lab’s Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement reveals plans for diagnostic experiments to prepare the Nevada Test Site for a return to nuclear testing as soon as Congress gives the green light.

The Review also recommends the development of a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) to destroy enemy underground facilities. Despite Pentagon claims to the contrary, these new weapons could cause massive devastation and loss of innocent life. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that up to a million people or more could be killed in an attack with a Nuclear Earth Penetrator. 

Finally, the Review calls for the targeting of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states suspected of possessing WMDs. These included North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Libya. This should be considered alongside the September 2002 National Security Strategy that calls for preventative military strikes against “rogue nations” and the tragic realization of this doctrine in the Iraq War. These twin policies create the possibility that the United States may eventually engage in a limited “first strike” nuclear attack against another nation. 

 Designing Nuclear Terror 

Where will these new nuclear weapons capabilities come from? The Department of Energy currently utilizes two main sites for the research and development of nuclear weapons—Los Alamos in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. 

Over 80 percent of Livermore’s budget is connected to nuclear weapons design and development. The NNSA has attempted to portray Livermore’s work as ensuring the safety and reliability of existing nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship program goes far beyond reliability testing. As Dr. Robert Civiak has explained, its purpose is to develop new, advanced components for nuclear weapons (“Managing the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile: A Comparison of 5 Strategies,” Tri-Valley CAREs Report, July 2000). Through this process of testing and modification, existing weapon designs become deadlier and whole new weapons may ultimately be developed. 

Plans are in place to dramatically ramp up the nuclear weapons design work that has always been at the heart of the Livermore Lab’s operations. These plans are called the “preferred alternative” in the final SWEIS. Livermore will develop new technologies for the design and manufacturing of new plutonium pits, which are the primaries of modern nuclear weapons. These pits could be used as replacements in older weapons, but they could also serve as the cores of new weapons like the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and low-yield tactical nuclear weapons or “mini-nukes.” 

Although a final site for the Modern Plutonium Pit facility has yet to be chosen, the design of prototype pits at Livermore is cause for concern. This project will result in the doubling of the amount of plutonium that is stored at the Lab, from 1,500 to 3,080 pounds. This is occurring at the same time that other DOE leaders and government agencies are urging the complete de-inventorying of weapons grade nuclear materials from Livermore. Even Congress is beginning to acknowledge that the placement of a major plutonium stockpile in the middle of a rapidly growing residential area creates an attractive target for terrorists. 

The National Ignition Facility 

Another component of the aggressive U.S. nuclear weapons strategy is the National Ignition Facility that is currently under construction at Livermore. NIF’s goal is to create a self-sustaining thermonuclear fusion reaction by focusing 192 laser beams on a tiny capsule of deuterium and radioactive tritium. These elements are key components of secondaries in modern thermonuclear weapons, providing the fusion reaction that creates a far larger explosive yield than their fission-only counterparts. NIF has been plagued with scandals and technical problems, including billions of dollars in cost overruns and serious questions about its ability to achieve its scientific goal of producing thermonuclear ignition. 

NIF has been advertised as a means of ensuring the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons without having to return to full-scale nuclear testing. But prominent DOE scientists and engineers have vehemently contested this justification for the project. Bob Peurifoy, former chief of stockpile maintenance at Sandia National Laboratories, recently stated, “NIF has little if anything to do with the present and future health of the existing stockpile.” 

NIF critics have argued that the project will actually allow weaponeers to redesign nuclear weapons, enabling scientists to make precise adjustments to explosive yields and other features. Thus, NIF could be particularly useful for the creation of new low-yield nuclear weapons. NIF research may also help weaponeers explore the possibility of creating a pure fusion bomb, which would not require plutonium or highly-enriched uranium. 

The most recent plans for NIF clearly show that NNSA is more interested in designing new weapons than in maintaining either the safety or reliability of the existing stockpile. When NIF was sold to Congress, NNSA promised that the project’s research would not include experiments with any fissile materials (e.g., plutonium and highly-enriched uranium). Now NNSA has suddenly shifted course by proposing to use these materials along with lithium hydride in the target chamber, which will allow scientists to research entirely new weapons designs. Activists at Tri-Valley CAREs have learned that the NIF may also be used to develop technologies for the provocative national missile defense program. 

If fiscal year 2006 funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is approved by Congress, Livermore has been chosen as the site for its research and design. The Earth Penetrator poses an enormous danger to innocent life. The weapon’s advocates have claimed that the RNEP could burrow deep enough to contain the nuclear explosion and radiation underground. But, according to Princeton University physicist Robert Nelson, a typical Earth Penetrator would not be able to penetrate more than 20 meters underground (“Nuclear Bunker Busters, Mini-Nukes and the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile,” Physics Today, September 2003) while radioactive fallout could not be contained at a depth any less than 90 meters. This is because the shockwave from the explosion produces an enormous bomb crater, sending radioactive dirt and debris upwards into the atmosphere. This low-hanging radioactive fallout could travel downwind for thousands of miles, exposing hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of innocent people to fatal amounts of radiation; many more civilians would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation. If the target was a storage facility for biological or chemical weapons, the explosion could potentially release the agents into the air instead of sterilizing them. 

Livermore Laboratory is where the neo-conservative ideology of “full spectrum dominance” through conventional and nuclear war fighting becomes a reality in the form of modernized nuclear weapons designs. While the Cold War has ended, the shadow of a nuclear holocaust has not receded from the world. Peace and justice activists must call for the global abolition of nuclear weapons, beginning here at home. We must demand that Livermore and other nuclear weapons sites be converted into centers of peaceful civilian research on pressing issues such as sustainable energy, the international health crisis, and global climate change. It is up to us to pull our country back from the brink of nuclear insanity.