In a letter to the acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Deputy Secretary of Energy raised concerns about the status of the program "to reestablish the capability to produce plutonium pits at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Savannah River Site (SRS)."

The letter directs the Office of Enterprise Assessments "to conduct a special study of NNSA's leadership and management of the plutonium pit production mission and its associated projects at LANL and SRS."

The current goal of the program is to achieve the capability to produce 80 pits annually by 2030. Los Alamos is expected to be able to produce 30 pits a year. See details of the program in earlier posts: 2019 and 2020.

The DOE letter was published by the Los Alamos Study Group.