pogo.org U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Homeland Security Opportunities 4/2005 Project On Government Oversight

Pantex Plant. Pantex stores thousands of plutonium pits in World War II-era bunkers located at the end of an Amarillo airport runway, creating an optimal terrorist target. Since these pits will never be used, they should be immobilized so that they are no longer available to suicidal terrorists. In the mean time, plutonium should be better secured at a location away from the airport or in an underground facility. SAVINGS: $140 million

UNUSED SECURE STORAGE SITES

Device Assembly Facility (DAF) at the Nevada Test Site. Special Nuclear Materials from the notorious Los Alamos TA-18 are now being shipped to the DAF, the most secure storage facility in the country. However, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration and security contractor Wackenhut have not increased security in preparation for these shipments. As a result, the site failed a mock terrorist test in 2004. POGO recommends increasing the size of the protective force, and improving training and defensive strategy at the site. COST: $90 million

Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). INEEL is one of only two facilities in the entire nuclear weapons complex to actually have an appropriately-secure underground repository for Special Nuclear Materials. The great irony is that this is the only site in the complex expected to meet its schedule for de-inventorying (by Summer 2005). In fact, the facility was slated for “rubblization” until only recently, when government officials realized this facility might fulfill most needs for underground storage for the complex. POGO recommends preparing the underground facility to store plutonium and highly-enriched uranium. A relatively modest investment in this facility would pay for itself in six years. COST: $150 million

FACILITIES THAT SHOULD ULTIMATELY BE DE-INVENTORIED

Argonne National Laboratory, West. Argonne West is building a new facility to store plutonium for a NASA space program. The Lab also stores more than nine tons of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium, although it has no weapons-related need for this material. Two years ago, the Lab’s security was found to be unsatisfactory, and it continues to have trouble developing updated security plans. POGO recommends de-inventorying Argonne West and moving the NASA-related materials to an existing building at the Idaho National Lab (formerly INEEL). SAVINGS: $75 million

Savannah River Site. Savannah River is home to the nation’s stockpile of plutonium. Although a plan had been under way to consolidate materials to one building, DOE has proposed several new facilities to house plutonium, including one that would be used to convert plutonium into nuclear power plant fuel. POGO recommends that DOE consider relocating any proposed new facilities to Pantex, and that Savannah River ultimately be de-inventoried by moving plutonium to one of the secure storage sites at the Idaho National Lab or the Nevada Test Site. In addition, the amount of plutonium declared excess should be more than doubled and made unusable by terrorists by immobilizing it. SAVINGS: $460 million

After 9/11, when we learned that terrorists are far more capable than had previously been imagined, officials viewed the security of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear weapons facilities in a whole new light. While there will continue to be political debates regarding the mission of the nuclear weapons complex, there is no longer any debate about the fact that these facilities have certain vulnerabilities, and pose risks to public health and safety, unlike any other sector in the country. It is critical that these risks and vulnerabilities be reduced as much as possible, and as quickly as possible. This means reducing the number of targets and reducing the stockpiles of excess nuclear materials.

The Department maintains its stockpile of nuclear weapons quantities of bomb-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium (commonly known as “Special Nuclear Materials” or SNM) at 13 locations. Because of the fearsome capacity of these materials, any facility storing them is classified as a Category I (CAT I) site.

The DOE owns eleven of these sites: seven are run by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and four by the Office of Energy, Science and Environment (ESE). The sites in Lynchburg, Virginia and Erwin, Tennessee are commercially owned. Although the commercially-owned sites are primarily funded by DOE’s Office of Naval Reactors, they are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The security for these two sites is tested by the far less demanding NRC, using a security standard, or Design Basis Threat (DBT),^[2] which appears to be weaker than that applied to DOE facilities. For instance, security at the Nuclear Fuel Services has not been tested by the NRC since 1998.

Many of the Category I sites store their Special Nuclear Materials in inadequately secured World War II and 1950s-era buildings that were never designed for long term storage or with modern-day terrorist threats in mind. Moreover, many of these labs and facilities do not need Special Nuclear Material for their mission, but are simply storing these materials – at great cost and risk to the health and safety of the public.

In 2003 and 2004, several hearings were held by the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. At one of the hearings, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported back to National Security Subcommittee Chairman Chris Shays (R-CT), who had requested a wide-ranging review of security at the nuclear weapons complex. The Congressional investigators’ testimony was unusually critical of security at NNSA sites.^[3] The GAO's review of security at the ESE sites is expected in June 2005. The Senate has remained largely silent on the subject.

On September 14, 2004, DOE Headquarters in Washington, D.C., sent a directive to all sites in the nuclear weapons complex ordering a significant increase in their security posture (known as the Design Basis Threat, or DBT). The intent was to require better protection for sites containing weapons quantities of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium. This move was codified in October when then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham officially announced the increase in requirements, the second since 9/11.^[4] Under the new requirements, security forces will have to be prepared to repel more than three times the number of attackers they were required to protect against prior to 9/11. Furthermore, it will be assumed that adversaries will be using far more lethal weapons and much larger truck bombs than had previously been considered.

Yet the new standards will not be fully implemented until 2008 – seven years after 9/11. The NNSA estimates that for its seven sites the new security plans will cost $500 million annually in manpower alone.^[5] This does not include further technological upgrades such as more secure storage facilities, activated barriers^[6], high-tech sensors, cameras and other infrastructural improvements. For instance, a line of two fences with sensors and cameras between them^[7] would cost each site, on average, $14,000 per linear foot.

An array of concerns arises when it comes to securing America’s nuclear material. But security experts’ greatest fear is very distinct: a terrorist group successfully reaches its target at one of the facilities and within minutes uses the highly-enriched uranium (HEU) to create an improvised nuclear bomb on site (known as an Improvised Nuclear Device, or IND).^[9]

In October 2001, the Project On Government Oversight ( POGO ) issued its report “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security at Risk” recommending, among other things, consolidation of the Department’s HEU and plutonium. This report included the first public discussion of Improvised Nuclear Devices (IND), the simplicity with which they could be assembled and detonated, and the dangers they posed to the areas surrounding the sites that store HEU and plutonium. With little public awareness of the IND problem, DOE had been able to ignore it by classifying discussion of the vulnerability as a “Special Access Program” or SAP. For decades, only a select few government officials were allowed to discuss INDs. Even the name of the SAP was classified.^[10] Despite the devastating security concerns raised by INDs, one DOE official articulated the head-in-the-sand approach to this problem in a 1999 meeting, saying, “We were told by Headquarters not to spend a cent on this problem.”^[11]Highly-enriched uranium would clearly be the material of choice to create an IND. It only takes a critical mass (about one hundred pounds) of HEU to create an IND.^[12] One site alone stores about 400 metric tons of HEU. INDs are frequently referred to as a “gun type” weapon – firing a piece of HEU at another piece to create a chain reaction. This was the method used to create the Hiroshima bomb. Using the same theory, terrorists could create a crude IND by taking two pieces of HEU and slamming them together with conventional explosives. In fact, a far more crude IND can be created even without the use of explosives. This nearly happened accidentally at Y-12 years ago. As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis Alvarez explained it:

According to Princeton University ’s Frank von Hippel, “a 100-pound mass of uranium dropped on a second 100-pound mass, from a height of about 6 feet, could produce a blast of 5 to10 kilotons.”^[14] The blast from the Hiroshima atomic bomb was only slightly larger, and it killed over 200,000 people.

Two other nuclear materials exist that have the same properties as highly-enriched uranium in that they can be used to create an IND – Neptunium-237 and Uranium-233.^[15]Several DOE sites store substantial amounts of Neptunium-237, but DOE has been silent on whether these materials need to be protected at the new DBT levels. Neptunium-237 is produced in nuclear power reactors as a byproduct of the chain reaction. It has a very low neutron background and can be chemically separated out of spent reactor fuel using basic chemistry rather than the large and expensive processes required to enrich uranium. According to a Los Alamos press release, in 2002 Los Alamos demonstrated that the critical mass of Neptunium-237 is about 60kg. A bomb with a large yield could therefore be made with less than 2 critical masses of Neptunium-237 (but more than 60 kg total). (APPENDIX A) As a result, Neptunium-237 is not simply the valueless byproduct of a chain reaction, as previously thought. Instead, it can be a dangerous nuclear material that is attractive to terrorists.

It was during the 1990s that the DOE became concerned about the potential of neptunium as an isotope that could be used in the creation of a nuclear weapon.

U.S.

officials had several meetings with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about imposing new protection standards for neptunium as a Special Nuclear Material. Although they resisted at first, citing concerns that neptunium abounds worldwide, in 1999 the IAEA at least began to regard it as an “alternate nuclear material” requiring tracking but not safeguarding.^[16]Another such material that has fallen below the radar is Uranium-233. This material was produced by the nuclear weapons complex as a byproduct of the weapons program. Although DOE does not yet publicly acknowledge the risk, senior nuclear engineers advise POGO that in sufficient quantities, U-233 can be as potent and dangerous as highly-enriched uranium for making an improvised nuclear bomb. According to the private Nuclear Threat Initiative, “The properties of U-233 as a nuclear explosive would seem to make it quite attractive to bomb-makers.”^[17] Until recently, U-233, which is typically contaminated with highly radioactive U-232, had been considered too hazardous to be a security risk – it was considered “self-protecting” against theft because a person could die from handling it. However, 9/11 has taught us that many terrorists are willing to die to inflict the maximum damage to their targets. The radioactivity can no longer be viewed as an obstacle because a terrorist would still have enough time to set off an IND before dying from the radiation, given the relatively short amount of time needed to assemble an IND.

In addition to detonating an IND on site, terrorists could steal weapons quantities of plutonium or highly-enriched uranium and detonate a crude nuclear weapon in a major American city. Terrorists could also simply attack a facility and detonate conventional explosives in the nuclear material storage rooms to create a radiological dispersal device or “dirty bomb” sending radiation downwind, putting thousands of lives at risk and creating unimaginable property damage. However, an IND is orders of magnitude more devastating than a “dirty bomb.”

The DOE has now recognized the potential threat posed by INDs. In fact, the possibility of an IND detonation at a number of sites around the complex was a primary motivation for the dramatic increase in the Design Basis Threat in 2004.


	May 2005 U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Homeland Security Opportunities Summary As internal tests and analyses have shown, the Department of Energy cannot adequately protect America ’s voluminous stockpile of weapons grade nuclear material, which is housed at 13 locations throughout the country. In the post-9/11 era, we know that suicidal terrorists are capable of massive attacks – the worst possible scenario would be terrorists penetrating a nuclear facility and building an improvised nuclear bomb, which could have a similar force of the Hiroshima blast. In this report, POGO makes recommendations that will reduce the number of sites containing these nuclear materials from 13 down to seven.