The United States is planning a $1.7 trillion overhaul of its entire nuclear arsenal, designing new warheads and investing in new bombers, missiles, and submarines to carry them. The new warheads, in turn, are driving demand for new plutonium “pits”—the bomb cores that begin the chain reaction in every US thermonuclear weapon—despite the fact that the United States has thousands of surplus pits in reserve.
Producing new pits would not only be expensive, time consuming, and logistically challenging, but is also technically unnecessary and politically destabilizing. It would actually decrease national security by encouraging a new arms race. In addition, a rushed program will likely increase health risks to workers and communities.
Science shows we can count on the reliability of existing plutonium pits. There are other ways to improve security without the risks and costs of producing new pits.
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Citation
Spaulding, Dylan. 2025. Plutonium Pit Production: The Risks and Costs of US Plans to Build New Nuclear Weapons. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists. https://doi.org/10.47923/2025.15875