Los Angeles Times: A decade-long effort to refurbish thousands of aging nuclear warheads built more than 20-years-ago has run into serious technical problems that have forced delays.
The $200-million-a-year refurbishment program involves a type of warhead known as the W76, which is used on the Navy’s Trident missile system and makes up more than half of the deployed warheads in the US stockpile.In February, the Energy department’s National Nuclear Security Administration announced that the “first refurbished W76 nuclear warhead had been accepted into the US nuclear weapons stockpile by the Navy."But no delivery was ever made. The warhead is still in pieces at the Energy Department’s Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas, according to an engineer at the facility.The hold-up in deploying the warhead is not connected to any missing expertise regarding how to build a nuclear device, but how to manufacture one of the other warhead components. Delays in the program could extend the refurbishment program by another 10 years.
