By Dr. Ludwig De Braeckeleer
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
In the U.S., as odd as it may sound, the Department of Energy (DOE) oversees the nuclear weapons program. In recent years, U.S. lawmakers and watchdog associations alike have become increasingly critical of the DOE's management.
In New Mexico, the DOE has begun the construction of a facility that will be obsolete just a few years after completion. In Washington state, a nuclear waste treatment plant is running 20 years and tens of billions of dollars behind schedule. at Los alamos National Laboratory (N.M.) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Calif.), research projects show clear patterns of mismanagement. Nationwide, security is sloppy.
The new Los alamos Plutonium Research Center should be completed by 2017. Most of its cost is associated with security issues such as safeguarding fissile material from terrorist attacks. But many question the need for the facility as all the plutonium in the U.S. will be assembled at a unique facility beginning in 2024.
"It is stupid to put money into a limited-life thing like this," said Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development.
"It is not my job to maximize spending on this program. I do not believe we have the proper approach," said Rep. Peter J. Visclosky (D-Ind.), the ranking Democrat on the same subcommittee.
This investment is "worse than a boondoggle," said Danielle Brian, the director of the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C., watchdog group, arguing that the Los alamos project will not only waste money but will also delay the construction of the centralized facility.
"I am a strong believer in maintaining a nuclear deterrent. But I would like to have some integrity within the labs and management. They'll do anything for a buck," said Bob Peurifoy, a retired vice president at Sandia National Laboratory (N.M.).
Earlier this spring, the subcommittee voted down the Los alamos plutonium research facility, and so did the full House. Yet, it seems that U.S. Senators will try to keep the project alive.
In Richland, Washington, just a few miles away from the Colombia River, fifty-three millions gallons of radioactive waste is awaiting treatment. Meanwhile, some of the storage tanks are leaking.
"Some of the ground under the tanks is screaming hot. The groundwater is already contaminated," said John Brodeur, a geological engineer who investigated the site in the 1990s.
The construction of a waste treatment complex began in 1989. The project was expected to cost $4 billion and to be completed in 1999. To this day, not a single gallon of nuclear waste has been treated. Mangers hope to finish the plant by 2019. The final cost, including operation and dismantlement, could reach an astounding $100 billion.
"We have had some world-class technical issues. I have made mistakes. Bechtel has made mistakes. If I could relive the last three years, there are things I would do differently," explained John Eschenberg, the federal manager for the complex.
"You want to take somebody out and hang them. It is already outrageous what it is costing," said Hobson.
"We are extremely frustrated. It is becoming impossible to accept more delays," argued Suzanne Dahl, who oversees the project for Washington state's Department of Ecology.
"They are taking a real risk the thing won't work and they will have an $11.5-billion white elephant sitting in the desert," said Tom Carpenter, who runs the nuclear oversight program at the Government accountability Project.
another Los alamos project, the Dual axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility, follows the same pattern of delay and cost overruns. This gigantic X-ray machine is built to record the trigger phase of a nuclear explosion.
Once assembled, the Los alamos scientists realized that the machine would not work. What was originally projected to be a $10 million project is now estimated at as much as $400 million.
at Livermore, things are running no better. The cost of the National Ignition Facility, a powerful laser built to simulate thermonuclear reactions, has grown to $3.4 billion from $1 billion.
"We ran into technical problems that we couldn't imagine," said Thomas D'agostino, the manager of the project.
Even the cyber security of the DOE shows major shortcomings, in spite of an awesome annual budget of $140 million.
"Significant weaknesses continue to exist," confessed Gregory H. Friedman, the DOE's inspector general.
The National Nuclear Security administration (NNSa) in albuquerque, New Mexico, keeps computer records of their employees including names, Social Security numbers, birthdates, security clearances status and codes showing working areas.
In September 2005, a hacker managed to access the system and steal the identity of 1,500 DOE workers.
The incident was not reported to senior officials until June 2006. None of the victims was notified.
NNSa administrator Linton F. Brooks has admitted that he was aware of the security break since September 2005. Yet, Brooks informed neither Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, nor Tom Pyke, the DOE official charged with cyber security.
Brooks claims that the DOE's counterintelligence office should have briefed directly the energy secretary as well as the deputy. Some lawmakers are highly critical of such nonchalance.
"That's hogwash, you report directly to the secretary -- You had a major breach of your own security, and yet you didn't inform the secretary," Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, replied to Brooks.
DOE officials did not say whether the classified network that contains nuclear weapon designs had also been hacked.
To many observers, all these problems are just facets of a deeply disturbing reality. The U.S. nuclear workforce has badly declined over the last 30 years. as skilled workers were retiring, a new generation of nuclear scientists simply did not materialize.
"There is no question we underestimated the amount of atrophy, how much the nuclear supply industry had atrophied -- how difficult it would be to find the people with the required skills," said William Elkins, Bechtel's top officer managing the construction of the Hanford waste treatment complex in Washington state.