Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentation of and overreaction to the Soviet threat, the desire to maintain nuclear superiority, bureaucratic and often arbitrary decisions, pork barrel politics, and excessive secrecy—all drove the acquisition of an arsenal far larger than what many contemporary civilian and military leaders deemed necessary. Atomic Audit concludes with recommendations for strengthening atomic accountability and fostering greater public understanding of nuclear weapons programs and policies.
Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentation of and overreaction to the Soviet threat, the desire to maintain nuclear superiority, bureaucratic and often arbitrary decisions, pork barrel politics, and excessive secrecy—all drove the acquisition of an arsenal far larger than what many contemporary civilian and military leaders deemed necessary. Atomic Audit concludes with recommendations for strengthening atomic accountability and fostering greater public understanding of nuclear weapons programs and policies.
Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940
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Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940
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Overview
Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentation of and overreaction to the Soviet threat, the desire to maintain nuclear superiority, bureaucratic and often arbitrary decisions, pork barrel politics, and excessive secrecy—all drove the acquisition of an arsenal far larger than what many contemporary civilian and military leaders deemed necessary. Atomic Audit concludes with recommendations for strengthening atomic accountability and fostering greater public understanding of nuclear weapons programs and policies.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780815722946 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/01/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 700 |
| File size: | 28 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Building the Bomb
Kevin O'Neill
Between 1945 and 1990 the United States produced more than 70,000 nuclear weapons. The cost--for the acquisition and production of fissionable materials and for weapons research, development, testing, and manufacturing--was approximately $409 billion and was divided among several agencies (see figure 1-1). Before World War II and up to the end of fiscal 1947, expenditures totaled $27.3 billion, of which nearly $26 billion went to the Manhattan Project and other, smaller government efforts during the war. After World War II, the Department of Defense invested more than $37 billion in nuclear weapons effects and related research. But by far the largest amount was spent by civilian agencies. Together, the Atomic Energy Commission (1947-75), the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA, 1975-77), and the Department of Energy (DOE, 1977 to the present) have spent $345 billion since 1947 to produce nuclear materials, to conduct research, and to develop, test, and manufacture nuclear weapons. This chapter covers the costs incurred during World War II, the Manhattan Project, and the cold war. Other costs, such as the historical and future costs of weapons dismantlement, environmental remediation, and waste management, are taken up in chapters 5 and 6.
Methodology and Sources
The inherent secrecy of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, the almost total lack of detailed budgetary data from the 1940s through at least the early 1960s, and the multipurpose nature of many weapons facilities make it virtually impossible to audit the U.S. nuclear weapons development program on a site-by-site basis. In addition, a calculation of actual year-by-year expenses by program is complicated by standard budgeting practices, which generally record budget authority and obligations.
Still, budget authority and obligations make it possible to estimate expenditures over time. Budget authority is the right granted to an agency by Congress to allocate a given amount of money for certain specified purposes, while obligations represent an agency's commitment to allocate this amount as specified. These obligations may be discharged within a single fiscal year or over a period of several years, as in the case of construction projects and capital equipment purchases. Therefore, budget authority and obligations provide an accurate record of historical expenditures, but not of actual spending in a given year.
Most of the data presented in this chapter can be found in government documents presented to the Congress and to the public. Beginning in the early 1960s, annual AEC, ERDA, and DOE budget requests were presented to Congress and printed as part of the official records of hearings of the Joint Committee of Atomic Energy. After this committee was abolished in 1977, separate House and Senate appropriations subcommittees continued the practice. Before the early 1960s, these records did not typically present budget data in a useful fashion, although the Bureau of the Budget (later, the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB) annually published such data in the Budget of the United States Government. Some of the data have only recently been released to the public or made available by the DOD and DOE at the request of this project's participants.
Several deflators have been used. OMB total defense outlays were used as a deflator for Manhattan Project expenditures, which are expressed as actual expenditures by the sources used. Otherwise, DOD deflators are used for total obligational authority and for budget authority, where applicable.
The Nuclear Weapons Production Complex
Historically, the United States has expanded or reduced its weapons production complex whenever policy decisions, perceived military requirements, and costs deemed it necessary. At present, the complex consists of thirteen major facilities around the country (three of which are inactive). These facilities occupy nearly 3,300 square miles (8,547 square kilometers), a land area greater than that of Delaware, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia combined (see figure 1-2 and appendix C for a complete list of active and inactive facilities).
Producing the Nuclear Materials
The most difficult step in manufacturing nuclear weapons lies in producing highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, the fissionable materials used in nuclear weapons. Only certain isotopes of uranium and plutonium are suitable for making weapons. Isotopes are forms of an element that have nearly identical chemical properties but whose nuclei contain different numbers of neutrons. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of almost 99.3 percent uranium-238, which is not suitable for nuclear explosives, and only 0.7 percent uranium-235, the fissionable isotope used in weapons. The level of uranium-235 must be increased or enriched before it can be used in nuclear weapons or even in most common nuclear power reactors. Plutonium is also problematic: it occurs naturally only in minute quantities and must be produced in a nuclear reactor.
Uranium Enrichment. Most nuclear power reactors use uranium fuel enriched to 2-5 percent, but the U.S. nuclear program used "highly enriched uranium," defined as greater than 20 percent uranium-235, to manufacture warhead pits and secondaries for thermonuclear weapons, for naval reactor fuel, and as fuel for some production reactors at its Savannah River Site (SRS).
The Manhattan Project--officially known as the Manhattan Engineer District (MED)--used a combination of three enrichment methods to produce HEU. The first method, called electromagnetic isotopic separation, achieved enrichment with the aid of large electromagnets in a device called a calutron. The second method relied on gaseous diffusion. Gaseous diffusion enrichment operates on the principle that heavier gaseous molecules move more slowly than lighter gaseous molecules. In this method of enrichment, gaseous uranium tetrachloride molecules are circulated into a series of cylindrical containers, each divided into two sections by a porous barrier. The molecules containing the lighter uranium-235 hit the barrier more frequently than the heavier molecules and therefore collect on one side of the barrier. This was the primary method used by the United States to enrich uranium during the cold war. Large plants housing the calutrons (Y-12) and gaseous diffusion "cascades" (K-25) were built at what is now the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee. A third method, thermal diffusion, was initially considered and then abandoned after electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion were deemed more promising for large-scale production. However, the S-50 Thermal Diffusion Plant at Oak Ridge--built for an estimated $179 million--was used to provide enriched feed material to the Y-12 and K-25 plants.
After World War II, in response to the first Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb and the outbreak of the Korean War, the AEC expanded the Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant and built large new facilities in Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Kentucky. These facilities have also produced low enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants. In April 1964 the United States unilaterally ceased production of HEU for weapons, although two of the plants continued to produce HEU for naval nuclear reactors, plutonium production reactors, and civilian research reactors. As a result of this decision, HEU production declined 40 percent (at the same time, plutonium production fell 20 percent).
Plutonium and Tritium Production. Unlike uranium-235, which can be isolated from other naturally occurring uranium isotopes, all of the plutonium used by the United States to build nuclear weapons has been produced in nuclear reactors. Plutonium is created when uranium-238 absorbs neutrons during a chain reaction. The uranium-238 forms the isotope uranium-239, which through a process called "beta decay" quickly transforms into another element, neptunium-239. A second beta decay then results in plutonium-239, the principal isotope used in weapons.
Once the plutonium is produced, it is chemically separated from the spent reactor fuel in a procedure known as "reprocessing." Because spent reactor fuel is highly radioactive, reprocessing must be conducted in remotely operated or automated facilities. Plutonium and uranium can be separated from the highly radioactive waste by dissolving the spent fuel in acid. Subsequently, the plutonium and uranium are separated from each other using nitric acid in a process known as solvent extraction. The plutonium is then used to manufacture weapons, and the uranium is recycled back into the fuel production pipeline of the weapons complex (see figure 1-3).
During the cold war, the United States produced plutonium at two sites: Hanford Reservation, near Richland, Washington; and the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, South Carolina (known as the Savannah River Plant until April 1, 1989). Hanford produced the plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Of the nine reactors built at Hanford, eight were in operation by the mid-1950s but were all shut down by 1971. A ninth reactor was constructed in the early 1960s and produced both weapon-grade and fuel-grade plutonium until 1987. The irradiated fuel containing the plutonium was stored on site, and the plutonium was extracted in as many as five reprocessing plants at Hanford, nicknamed "Queen Marys" by plant workers because of their great size (which significantly exceeded that of their maritime namesake).
Between 1951 and 1955, five reactors were constructed at the SRS. Unlike the light-water, graphite-moderated reactors at Hanford, the Savannah River reactors were moderated and cooled by heavy water and used HEU fuel. HEU and plutonium were recovered from spent fuel at the Savannah Site's H and F chemical separation plants.
The United States also used the Savannah River reactors to produce the materials needed to build boosted and thermonuclear weapons. These weapons employ tritium and deuterium to increase the explosive yield or decrease the amount of fissile materials required to achieve the same yield. In boosted weapons, a mix of tritium and deuterium gas is released into the hollow, fissioning mass of plutonium, or HEU, called a "pit" or "core," shortly before detonation. Energy generated by the fission explosion causes tritium atoms to join, or "fuse," with deuterium and release neutrons. The release of neutrons by the tritium causes more of the plutonium or HEU to fission and thereby increases, or "boosts," the yield.
In thermonuclear weapons, tritium is formed in situ from lithium deuteride components and fuses with deuterium in the thermonuclear "secondary." The energy released through fusion in thermonuclear weapons is sufficient to increase the yield of an atomic weapon from tons or kilotons to the megaton range. If a uranium tamper (composed of uranium-238) is placed around the secondary, high-energy neutrons released by the fusion reaction will fission the tamper and increase the yield even more.
The United States needed to isolate sufficient deuterium from heavy water and produce tritium to manufacture boosted and thermonuclear weapons. Heavy water occurs in nature in a concentration of about 0.015 percent and may be separated from raw water through a combination of distillation and chemical exchange between hydrogen sulfide and water or through electrolysis. To isolate heavy water, the Manhattan Project and the AEC constructed several plants, including one at Savannah River that operated from 1952 to 1982. Tritium was produced in the heavy water-moderated reactors by bombarding lithium-6 targets with neutrons. At the Tritium Recovery Facility at SRS, engineers then recovered the tritium from the irradiated targets in a fashion analogous to reprocessing spent uranium fuel.
The United States relied on various sources to obtain the natural uranium needed to produce HEU and plutonium and to fuel the production reactors. Much of the Manhattan Project uranium--4,810 tons in all--came from the Belgian Congo in colonial Africa (today the Democratic Republic of Congo). Belgium sent this uranium to the United States at the beginning of the war to prevent it from falling into the hands of Nazi Germany. In the spring of 1943 the Manhattan Project initiated a highly secretive effort, known as the Murray Hill Area Project (named after a neighborhood in Manhattan that was the location of MED headquarters), to purchase the rights to as many of the high-grade uranium ore deposits as possible around the world, in a deliberate effort to monopolize existing supplies and prevent other nations from acquiring the raw materials necessary to build atomic weapons. To keep the program secret and avoid having to obtain Congressional approval, the government transferred funds directly from the MED into the personal bank account of Brigadier General Leslie Groves, head of the MED. Initial funding in 1943 was in excess of $37 million (more than $400 million in 1996 dollars).
After the war, the AEC purchased uranium from a variety of foreign sources, including Canada, Portugal, Australia, and South Africa. By the end of 1955 some 925 uranium mines were in operation in the United States. That figure held relatively steady through the early 1960s (as total production per mine increased) and then declined until mining operations for the weapons program ceased in 1970. Accounting records do not allow for an estimate of uranium purchase costs in the immediate postwar years, but by 1954 the AEC was spending $1 billion or more annually on uranium (see appendix table A-1).
Other Materials. Other important materials besides HEU, plutonium, tritium, and deuterium are needed to make nuclear weapons. Very pure fluorine gas is required to make uranium-hexafluoride (UF-6), the corrosive gas used in the enrichment process. The United States needed high-quality graphite to moderate Chicago Piles 1 and 2 (CP-1 and CP-2, the first experimental reactors at the University of Chicago), the X-10 reactor at Oak Ridge (the first plutonium production reactor and the model for the Hanford reactors), and weapons reactors at Hanford. Beryllium, a strong but lightweight metal, was used to fabricate shields around the core to reflect and amplify neutrons back into the critical mass (early weapon designs also incorporated beryllium in neutron initiators). Lithium-6 was needed to produce tritium, and mercury was needed to produce lithium-6. Significant quantities of precious metals, including gold, silver, and platinum, were also used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons (see chapter 5). Many of these materials--most notably plutonium, beryllium, and mercury--are highly toxic; environmental contamination by these and other materials continues to pose a significant concern at weapons complex sites (see chapter 6).
From Materials to Warheads and Bombs
More than two dozen facilities in the United States have conducted nuclear weapons research and helped to design, test, and manufacture nuclear warheads and bombs. The process can be illustrated by examining the primary functions of several of these facilities.
Weapons Research, Design, and Testing. The primary mission of nuclear weapons research and development has been to create new nuclear explosive devices. The scope of the research and the direction and growth of the nuclear arsenal have often been dictated by laboratory breakthroughs rather than military requirements, especially during the early years of the cold war. From the beginning, the services were not greatly concerned about specialization: "As long as their specific requirements could be met, they felt that interchangeability of nuclear materials among several systems was a good thing.... As soon as the nuclear designers learned and pointed out that higher efficiencies would be obtained if weapons were tailored to specific systems, the Services accepted the idea gladly." Even as late as 1973, a senior DOD official told Congress, "the laboratories have often led. They have bright people. They know the military problems. In many cases, they travel, they interact and quite often, they come up with solutions to military problems before the military people know that a solution is possible."
As weapons technology evolved, however, the services began requesting not only more and different kinds of bombs and warheads, but also extra features or capabilities that significantly increased the per unit cost. Because the military services have never had to pay for their own nuclear bombs and warheads--all of the costs were borne by the AEC, ERDA, and the DOE--there was never any fiscal incentive not to "require" large quantities of the most sophisticated kinds that could be produced.
Between 1945 and 1991, the DOE and its predecessors designed and built 65 types of bombs and warheads for 116 kinds of delivery systems, ranging from battlefield, or "tactical," nuclear weapons to the strategic bombs and warheads based in the United States or on board ballistic missile submarines (see box 1-1). Land mines, antisubmarine depth charges, artillery shells, gravity bombs, and cruise missiles are among the various weapons systems that have employed nuclear warheads (a complete chronological list of U.S. nuclear bombs and warheads appears in table 1-3).
Three dedicated nuclear laboratories--at Los Alamos, New Mexico; Livermore, California; and Albuquerque, New Mexico--have designed, tested, and sometimes manufactured nuclear weapons. The AEC inherited the Manhattan Project's main research laboratory at Los Alamos in 1947. Scientists there continued to pursue new weapons concepts and to manufacture atomic bombs. As the weapons complex grew, manufacturing activities were performed elsewhere, while the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), as it is known today, continued to be a primary focus of nuclear research and weapons development. Over time, its numerous assets have grown to include facilities for processing plutonium, handling other radioactive materials, manufacturing test devices, and testing new design concepts short of a full-scale test.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), in Livermore, California, was established in 1952, primarily to expand research into thermonuclear weapons. In the late 1940s, some scientists, AEC commissioners, and influential members of Congress began to argue that insufficient resources at Los Alamos were being dedicated to thermonuclear work and that a new laboratory was needed. Manhattan Project physicists Edward Teller and Ernest O. Lawrence were particularly insistent that a new laboratory be established (Teller even resigned from Los Alamos to lobby the administration on this point). Pressure also came from Senator Brien McMahon (Democrat of Connecticut), chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and an ardent advocate of increased production of nuclear weapons, who tried to interest the Department of Defense in establishing a second laboratory. Teller personally lobbied air force officials on this point, forcing AEC chairman Gordon Dean to choose between creating a laboratory at Livermore or ceding the hydrogen bomb program to the DOD. Under this pressure, the AEC established the Livermore Radiation Laboratory in 1952. Ironically, the first thermonuclear device tested by the United States in the November 1952 "Ivy-Mike" test and most of the more advanced weapons detonated during the "Castle" test series in 1954 were designed at Los Alamos. However, the AEC argued that two research laboratories were needed to create competition, fostered by "independent peer review" among weapons designers, which would lead to faster and cheaper breakthroughs. In turn, this competition contributed to the development of new weapons designs that exceeded military expectations and, by some accounts, spurred nuclear weapons developments as much as the competition with the Soviet Union.
Both the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories concentrated on developing sophisticated "physics packages" for nuclear weapons. A laboratory for nonnuclear research, known as the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), was established at Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1945 and also Livermore, California (in 1956). Sandia worked on other important bomb components, such as electronics equipment; safing, fuzing, and firing devices; and drogue parachutes. Consequently, while LANL and LLNL scientists independently produced new warhead designs, Sandia engineers contributed to the efforts of both laboratories.
Once new nuclear explosives were designed, the AEC and DOD collaborated to test them. The United States conducted "Operation Crossroads," its first post-World War II nuclear tests, at Bikini Atoll (part of the Marshall Islands) in the Pacific in July 1946, before the Manhattan Project was disbanded (the operation is discussed later in the chapter). In 1948, the United States began testing its nuclear weapons on Enewetak Atoll, also in the Marshalls and the site of the first thermonuclear test (Ivy-Mike) on November 1, 1952. Together, these atolls became the prime facilities of the AEC's Pacific Proving Ground (PPG), which was the site of sixty-six atmospheric and underwater tests until 1958.
However, only a limited number of tests could be conducted at this site, owing to the complex logistics of maintaining such a facility so far from U.S. shores and adverse weather conditions in the fall and winter. Defending the atolls against Soviet spies and possible outright attack was also difficult. Following the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, the army and navy--eager to break the air force's monopoly on atomic weapons and develop devices small enough to be used on the battlefield--requested small, low-yield weapons deliverable by carrier aircraft and artillery pieces. After studying several locations, the AEC in December 1950 designated the areas in and around the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range as the dedicated continental nuclear test site (on the selection of the test site, see box 1-2). The first test occurred a month later. This would be the primary test site for the remainder of the cold war. Although the United States continued to test high-yield thermonuclear weapons in the Pacific until the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, 904 (88 percent) of the total 1,030 tests it conducted occurred at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) (see figure 1-5).
Weapons Assembly, Production, and Storage. The manufacture and storage of nuclear weapons is a complicated process. Nuclear and nonnuclear components must be manufactured to stringent specifications. Assembly, production, and storage facilities must impose the strictest of security, health, and safety regulations to ensure that dangerous materials are not stolen and to minimize the health risk to workers and the offsite population. For example, metallic plutonium, which is susceptible to spontaneous combustion, must be handled in an enclosed and controlled environment. To shield workers from exposure and to reduce the risk of fire through accidental releases to the environment, this material is handled remotely in airtight "glove boxes."
Beginning in the early 1950s, components made of plutonium and HEU metal were assembled at the Rocky Flats Plant near Denver, Colorado, and the Y-12 Plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Specially equipped machine shops at Rocky Flats produced pits and other nuclear weapons components from plutonium, HEU, depleted uranium, beryllium, and other materials. Scrap plutonium from the assembly line, plutonium metal not deemed waste, and plutonium metal from retired warheads was purified and recycled into new components at the site. Originally, HEU pit components were manufactured and shaped at Oak Ridge's Y-12 Plant before shipment to Rocky Flats, but Y-12 ultimately Assumed responsibility for the full assembly of these components while Rocky Flats consolidated its work on plutonium. Thermonuclear secondary components were also assembled at Y-12.
Of the many facilities that contributed nonnuclear components, only the Kansas City Plant, near Kansas City, Missouri, remains in operation. It supplies various electrical, electronic, and plastic components, including arming, fuzing, and firing systems, radars, and coded safety locks known as permissive action links (PALs).
Since 1945 nuclear and nonnuclear components have been assembled into completed nuclear explosive devices at seven locations: Los Alamos; Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Buffalo Works in Buffalo, New York; the Burlington AEC Plant in Burlington, Iowa; the Clarksville Modification Center in Clarksville, Tennessee; the Medina Modification Center near San Antonio, Texas; and the Pantex Plant, outside Amarillo, Texas. Only Pantex performs these functions today (see appendix C). The most sensitive and dangerous procedure takes place in containment cells known as "Gravel Gerties," where high-explosive chemicals are layered around the spherical nuclear explosive pits. Each Gravel Gertie (there are thirteen in all at Pantex) holds some 17 feet (5.2 meters) of gravel on its roof and is designed to collapse should the chemical explosive detonate during the assembly process, thus containing the explosion and any radioactive debris it products.
At first, high explosives for the Manhattan Engineer District were manufactured at the Salt Wells Pilot Plant in Inyokern, California (at what is now China Lake Naval Air Warfare Center), under the code name Project Camel. In 1955 the bulk of production moved to the Holston Army Ammunition Plant at Kingsport, Tennessee (which has been the sole supplier since 1961). Newly manufactured warheads (or those returned to Pantex for routine surveillance or modification) are stored at Pantex and remain in DOE custody until the military takes control of them at an operational base or military storage depot.
Pantex also served as one of four plants that routinely disassembled retired warheads, a function it still performs (see chapter 5). After disassembly, nuclear components are transferred from Pantex back to their point of origin--either Rocky Flats or Y-12--for recycling and reuse. Since the cessation of production activities at the Rocky Flats Plant in 1989, Pantex has stored all plutonium components on site, although HEU secondaries are returned to the Y-12 Plant at Oak Ridge. Nonnuclear components were returned to the Pinellas Plant near Clearwater, Florida; the Mound Laboratory in Miamisburg, Ohio; and the Kansas City Plant. Since 1995, most work on nonnuclear components has been consolidated at the Kansas City Plant.
Assessing the Costs
Of course, many laboratories besides Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia conducted research and developed processes for handling nuclear materials, and dozens of facilities produced nonnuclear components and handled radioactive materials (see appendix C and chapters 5 and 6). The very size of the nuclear weapons complex, not to mention the secrecy surrounding many of its activities, the lack of rigorous accounting procedures, and poor historical records, make it extremely difficult to determine the costs incurred at each facility. It is much easier to assess costs by program among the lead agencies that contributed to the development of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The ones considered here are the Manhattan Project; the AEC, ERDA, the DOE, and DOD.
The Manhattan Project
The U.S. nuclear weapons program began shortly before the country entered into World War II. At first it was a modest program of basic research conducted under the supervision of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his closest advisers. Under wartime conditions it quickly expanded into a $25 billion project. Three offices--the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), and the Manhattan Engineer District--guided this work under what is more commonly known as the Manhattan Project.
National Defense Research Committee. The NDRC was created in June 1940, when atomic physics was still in its infancy. Indeed, that uranium was fissionable had only been demonstrated two years earlier, and it was not yet known if building an atomic bomb was practical. In the fall of 1939, in response to a letter from Albert Einstein, President Roosevelt established the Uranium Committee of the National Research Council under the leadership of Lyman J. Briggs, Director of the National Bureau of Standards. The committee coordinated research into the properties of uranium, but very little money was spent on this effort. Less than a year later, information that Germany had begun its own research into uranium spurred Roosevelt to expand U.S. activities, and in June 1940 the Uranium Committee was reconstituted under the newly created NDRC.
Led by Vannevar Bush, a former vice president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the NDRC investigated the fissile properties of uranium-235 and uranium-238 and began to evaluate methods for separating isotopes of uranium. The NDRC also coordinated research into the fissile properties and potential weapons applications of the newly discovered transuranic element number 94, later to be called plutonium.
Work coordinated by the NDRC was absorbed by the OSRD beginning in the summer of 1941. According to historical financial reports released by the AEC, the NDRC had spent $468,000, or $6.4 million in 1996 dollars, up to this time.
Office of Scientific Research and Development. Although the creation of the NDRC had demonstrated the importance of atomic research, organizational problems led the government to change its support in the following year. As a scientific and research organization, the NDRC was not equipped to "fill the gap between research and procurement orders that engineers called `development."' Furthermore, it had to compete for resources with the laboratories operated by the army and navy and thus found access to funding restricted. To remedy these shortcomings, Bush persuaded President Roosevelt to elevate the priority assigned to the military application of atomic energy.
At Bush's recommendation, Roosevelt created the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in June 1941. The OSRD was located within the Office of Emergency Management in the Executive Office of the President and was placed under Bush's direction. James Bryant Conant, the president of Harvard University, replaced Bush at the NDRC, which continued to exist under the OSRD. Under this arrangement, the NDRC made recommendations for further research, while the OSRD guaranteed access to the president and the promise of more resources. Research directed by Bush and Conant continued to explore different isotope separation methods, such as electromagnetic separation in calutrons and centrifuges and by means of gaseous diffusion. Work also continued on producing plutonium in a uranium-graphite "pile," although real breakthroughs were about a year away.
The OSRD was succeeded by the Manhattan Engineer District in 1942. It remained in existence until 1947, however, and its budget was intimately tied to the hidden accounts of the MED as well as other military research efforts. Official AEC sources report that the OSRD's independent contribution to the bomb program was $14.6 million, or $170.8 million in 1996 dollars.
Manhattan Engineer District. By far the largest and best-known World War II organization involved in the building of the bomb was the Army Corps of Engineers' Manhattan Engineer District. Although the OSRD had made progress in all its endeavors to separate uranium isotopes and produce plutonium, the design and construction of production-scale plants were beyond the scope of the office's expertise and mandate. It had long been recognized that the help of the army would be needed to construct facilities large enough for full-scale atomic bomb production, and the military became involved while the program was still under the direction of the OSRD. By September 1942 the project was in the hands of the MED.
Under the leadership of Brigadier General Leslie Groves, who had recently supervised construction of the Pentagon, the MED built the nucleus of the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex. Far from pilot facilities, however, these full-scale plants were designed from the start to generate enough materials for a sizable stockpile of atomic bombs.
In September 1942 Groves selected Oak Ridge, a site near Clinton, Tennessee, for the production of enriched uranium. Over the next two years the MED constructed several facilities there, including the Y-12 Plant, which housed the calutrons; the K-25 Plant for gaseous diffusion; and the S-50 Plant, where uranium was enriched through thermal diffusion. In the process, about one thousand families were displaced.
The Oak Ridge calutrons and gaseous diffusion separators were developed by physicists and engineers at several university laboratories, primarily the University of California, the University of Chicago, and Columbia University, while the MED contracted out construction, labor, and management tasks to firms such as the Tennessee Eastman Corporation (a subsidiary of Eastman Kodak), Union Carbide, and Stone and Webster, establishing a pattern that survives to the present. Shortages of essential materials caused by the war sometimes led to innovative substitutions in the design and production of these technologies.
A notable and expensive example of such ersatz craftsmanship involved the use of silver, rather than copper, to manufacture the electromagnetic coils for the calutrons. Because copper was scarce, silver--a good electrical conductor and not a critical war material--became a substitute. On August 29, 1942, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson requested the transfer of 175 million fine troy ounces (about 6,000 tons) of silver to the War Department for a "highly secret" project. By 1944 the amount had increased to 14,700 tons, worth nearly $3.3 billion in 1996 dollars.
On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi achieved the first chain reaction in natural uranium in CP-1, a graphite-moderated "pile" under the University of Chicago's Stagg Field. Surveying for the proper location for full-scale plutonium production reactors took place during the last two weeks of 1942 even before Fermi's experiment was complete. General Groves, in consultation with scientists in Chicago and Du Pont engineers, drew up a list of eight criteria for the site, encompassing available water and power supplies, land area, distance to existing communities, highways and railroads, and a suitable climate. From a list of twenty potential sites, Groves indicated that he preferred the ones in the Pacific Northwest. A three-man team--two engineers with E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and a lieutenant colonel from the Manhattan Engineer District--inspected the five most promising: Coulee and Hanford in Washington State; and Pit River, Needles, and Blythe in California. Their report, completed by January 2, 1943, recommended Hanford, finding that the other sites were deficient in one or more of the requirements (Needles, for example, was in an earthquake zone and would necessitate relocating a highway, and Blythe, which was 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) from the Mexican border, was excluded on security grounds). Hanford's only disadvantage was a lack of natural camouflage, owing to the flat, desertlike land. Formal acquisition of the land around Hanford began on February 9, 1943. Meanwhile, the MED would construct the X-l0 "pile" at Oak Ridge, to validate Fermi's research on controlled chain reactions.
In all, three reactors and three separation facilities were constructed at the Hanford Reservation during World War II. In September 1944, less than two years after the start of the unprecedented project, the first reactor went "critical," and soon separated plutonium was available for research and weapons use.
As at Oak Ridge, the MED relied on inexpensive construction labor and contracted out with private corporations to carry out most of the design and operations. E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company was selected to produce the uranium slugs and construct the reactors at the site. With the influx of tens of thousands of workers and technicians, new communities sprouted up and disrupted the lives of about five hundred residents in the nearby farming communities of Richland, Hanford, and White Bluffs, along with a handful of Wanaapum Indians who fished and foraged along the Columbia River. The purchase of the land itself involved complicated negotiations with the two thousand owners of the more than three thousand tracts that were required. Not only the living were inconvenienced; the area's cemeteries were all closed and the graves exhumed and relocated.
Weapons design and production took place at Los Alamos, run by the University of California under contract with the MED. The property was acquired in part from a boys' school at the site, although possession was disputed by Pueblo Indian and Hispano farmers, ranchers, and sheepherders living in the area. Until Los Alamos was founded in 1942, scientists had conducted weapons research at many different facilities across the country. By putting them all in one place, General Groves hoped to minimize security risks and foster collaboration. Isolated atop a high mesa in New Mexico, Los Alamos was ideal for both purposes.
What Did the Manhattan Project Cost? On July 16, 1945, an experimental plutonium-fueled device, nicknamed the "Gadget," was detonated from a tower 100 feet (30.5 meters) above the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo. The test was code-named "Trinity." Less than three weeks later, on August 6, a uranium-fueled atomic bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy," was detonated over Hiroshima (this "gun-type" device was considered so reliable that it was never tested). On August 9 a third bomb, named "Fat Man" and a virtual copy of the Trinity device, was dropped on Nagasaki. Two days later, Japan surrendered and World War II ended.
The cost of building the facilities to produce these bombs far exceeded the government's expectations (see footnote 39). According to the AEC, actual Manhattan Project (NDRC, OSRD, and MED) expenditures through the end of 1945 totaled $1.9 billion in then-year dollars ($21.6 billion in 1996 dollars). Of that amount, uranium enrichment accounted for $1.2 billion (about $13.6 billion in 1996 dollars); plutonium production for $390.1 million (about $4.5 billion in 1996 dollars); and weapons research, design, testing, and production (including work at Los Alamos) for $143.7 million (about $1.6 billion). In addition, $103.4 million ($1.2 billion) was spent on raw materials, primarily uranium, including ore from Canada and Belgium, along with extremely pure graphite, fluorine, and other materials needed to produce separated plutonium, enriched uranium, and nuclear weapons. The costs of individual programs encompassed by the Manhattan Project are presented in table 1-1.
Only a handful of people knew the enormous sums of money involved. General Groves and other officials secured what was essentially a blank check for the MED from the congressional leadership. To facilitate the appropriations process without revealing too many details, senior War Department and military officials (not including Groves) briefed House leaders in February 1944 (seventeen months after the project got under way) about finances, construction, procurement, and schedules, as well as the project's overall connection to the war. "The Congressmen indicated their approval without reservation" and said further explanations "would not be necessary." The Senate leadership concurred. Thus most members of Congress remained "completely in the dark" about the MED's work.
Atomic Energy Commission
After World War II ended in August 1945, the MED, under the direction of General Groves, continued to manage the weapons complex. At least one more bomb was in the pipeline in August 1945, and Oak Ridge and Hanford remained operational under their wartime contracts. Gradually, the production of uranium-235 at Oak Ridge and plutonium at Hanford declined. Work at Los Alamos also wound down, but preparations for "Operation Crossroads" kept about one-eighth of the scientists busy. There was no question, however, that the program would continue after the war. At a meeting of the Interim Committee on May 31, 1945 (formed by Secretary of War Stimson to consider postwar policy options for the atomic bomb and including Stimson, Groves, Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Bush, MIT president Karl T. Compton, Undersecretary of the Navy Ralph A. Bard, Assistant Secretary of State William L. Clayton, and Secretary of State-designate James F. Byrnes), Lawrence spoke forcefully in favor of continued production, recommending "that a program of plant expansion be vigorously pursued and at the same time a sizable stock pile of bombs and material should be built up" to ensure that the nation would "stay out in front." Later in the meeting, Byrnes "expressed the view, which was generally agreed to by all present, that the most desirable program would be to push ahead as fast as possible in production and research to make certain that we stay ahead and at the same time make every effort to better our political relations with Russia."
The only issue was under whose authority it would do so. Because the entire endeavor was conducted in strict secrecy, there was never any public or congressional discussion as to the profound military, economic, political, or environmental implications of this decision.
Meanwhile, Congress decided to replace the Manhattan Project with a civilian peacetime agency. In 1946, through the Atomic Energy Act (sponsored by freshman senator Brien McMahon), it established the Atomic Energy Commission, with broad powers to conduct, control, and regulate nuclear research. All materials, facilities, equipment, items, and property related to atomic energy research, and all property in the custody or control of the Manhattan Engineer District--including nine completed "Fat Man"-type bombs--were to be turned over to the AEC by January 1, 1947. The military aspects of the MED were incorporated in the new Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (which in turn became the Defense Atomic Support Agency, DASA, on May 6, 1959; the Defense Nuclear Agency, DNA, on July 1, 1971; and the Defense Special Weapons Agency on June 26, 1996).
Before this transfer was complete, the MED spent an additional $3.1 billion, most notably on the manufacture of nine new bombs, the development of more advanced plutonium weapons, continued research into thermonuclear weapons, and support for the Army-Navy Joint Task Force in conducting Operation Crossroads. Except for Crossroads, specific costs for these activities are unknown. On January 1, 1947, the AEC formally assumed control of the Manhattan Project. The transfer list included thirty-seven installations in nineteen states and Canada; and authority over 254 military officers, 1,688 enlisted men, and about 38,000 contractor employees.
As table 1-2 indicates, the AEC spent $1.6 billion during the last six months of fiscal 1947. The accuracy and completeness of this figure is uncertain. When the newly formed AEC went to Capitol Hill in 1947 to present its budget request for fiscal 1948, its chairman, David E. Lilienthal, wrote:
The committee itself refused to look at the secret tables we had prepared, but I insisted on it; then we withdrew them. But the secret tables contained large lump sum amounts--140 million for this, 200 for that. The committee members were baffled, and we admitted frankly we didn't know how to present a budget when (a) we didn't have a set of books showing costs, since the Army's Manhattan District didn't have or keep any; and (b) to disclose details would be to breach security.
As the AEC's controller subsequently explained: "The weapon--not the expense--was properly the primary consideration during the war. For this reason, financial controls as a tool of management were largely lacking.... In the main, Manhattan District financial management was aimed merely at justifying the reimbursement of expenditures made by cost-type contractors, in conformity with law and Government regulations." As a result, the commission had "an exceptionally poor basic program on which to work."
AEC, ERDA, and DOE Weapons-Related Activities
Between 1947 and 1996, the AEC and its successor agencies--ERDA and DOE--spent about $345 billion on nuclear weapons, roughly divided between materials production, on one hand, and weapons research, development, testing, and manufacturing, on the other. Construction at the weapons complex during this period cost an estimated $79 billion, and operations an estimated $227 billion.
Nuclear Materials Production Costs.
Official budget information suggests that the AEC, ERDA, and DOE have spent more than $165 billion to produce fissile and special materials for nuclear weapons, including an estimated 725 metric tons of HEU (estimated average enrichment of 93 percent), 103.5 metric tons of fuel and weapon-grade plutonium, and an estimated 225 kilograms of tritium since fiscal 1948. Of this amount, $76.7 billion was spent on operating costs, $35.1 billion on source materials procurement, and $51.1 billion on construction and capital equipment purchases (see appendix table A-1). An additional $1.6 billion was spent between 1968 and 1995 to safeguard these materials against theft or diversion while in DOE custody and (to a lesser extent) to implement production-related safety measures. (This amount is for program direction only; each facility has its own safeguards and security budget, which historically was not disaggregated from other spending.) Data on the unit cost of fissile and special nuclear materials, though tracked by the DOE, are classified. Whatever data exist on the total costs of producing each material (or even the total costs at each facility) also appear to be classified. It is therefore not possible to ascertain with any degree of specificity how much was expended just to produce, say, plutonium, highly enriched uranium or tritium (see figure 1-6).
When examined against the background of the ebb and flow of the AEC's materials production activities, the available time-consistent budget data fall into four distinct periods: 1948 to 1964, which was when fissile materials stockpiles rapidly increased; 1964 to 1980, a period of retrenchment in which the United States ceased producing HEU for weapons and sharply curtailed plutonium production activities; 1981 to 1988, which saw a rapid resurgence in materials production under the Reagan administration's military buildup; and 1989 to the present, which has witnessed the collapse of the materials production complex because of age and neglect and the reorientation of DOE's nuclear weapons missions.
Expansion: 1948-64. Not long after it was established, the AEC aggressively expanded U.S. capacity to produce fissile materials in response to the breakup of the wartime "Grand Alliance" and the deterioration, between 1946 and 1948, of U.S.-Soviet relations. Three important factors behind these developments were the domestic discord over the agreement negotiated at Yalta in February 1945 by President Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet leader Josef Stalin, which granted control of postwar Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union (in part to maintain the military alliance and end WWII); the resulting "German question"; and the Marshall Plan. Although the United States had a massive industrial mobilization base and a booming economy (both thanks to the war), not to mention the atomic bomb, the perceived superiority of the Red Army and the thought of it occupying Eastern Europe raised alarms in Washington about Soviet intentions and Western disadvantages should conflict break out.
To prevent war and maintain global influence, the Truman administration and its successors decided, among other things, to further embrace nuclear weapons, especially thermonuclear weapons. The first Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb in 1949 (which came as a shock to many observers), the fall of China to the Communists that same year, and the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, seemed to confirm policymakers' worst fears about Soviet expansionism (embodied most strongly in NSC 68, issued in April 1950) and spurred the United States to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. Apprehension about possible Soviet thermonuclear weapons also played a significant role in the expansion of the U.S. effort.
One day after North Korean forces attacked South Korea, Senator Brien McMahon (Democrat of Connecticut), now chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE), asked AEC commissioner Sumner Pike to estimate the cost of increasing planned nuclear weapon production rates by 50 percent over the next few years. Before the AEC could respond, Truman submitted to Congress on July 7 a supplemental appropriation of $260 million ($1.8 billion in 1996 dollars) for the AEC. McMahon supported the request and took the relatively small figure (3 percent of the overall 1951 defense budget) to mean that thermonuclear weapons were not very expensive and therefore were well within the reach of the Soviet Union. McMahon then asked William L. Borden, the JCAE's executive director, to assess the requirements for further expanding weapons production. Borden prepared a three-page memorandum outlining his belief that the Soviet Union was not only pursuing the hydrogen bomb but was likely well ahead of the United States. To keep the United States in the lead, Borden called for the establishment of a second Hanford, with three to five reactors of the existing graphite and the newer heavy-water design (according to intelligence reports at this time, the United States had only a one-pile advantage over the Soviet Union, and superiority in gaseous diffusion technology was also threatened; such dire analyses anticipated the bomber and missile "gaps" that were to materialize--and just as quickly fade away--later in the decade). "If we act to increase our supply of atomic weapons and they turn out to be unnecessary, we may lose a few hundred million dollars," Borden explained. "If we fail to produce these weapons and they do turn out to be necessary, we may lose our country."
Convinced of Soviet capabilities, the need for nuclear weapons in the U.S. defense posture, and the importance of research on these weapons, the Truman administration expanded the weapons complex during 1949-52. All the while the pressure for more nuclear weapons, especially large numbers of tactical weapons, and hence for fissionable materials, was building: it came from the JCAE, primarily Senators McMahon and Henry M. Jackson (Democrat of Washington); Robert LeBaron, assistant to the secretary of defense for atomic energy and chairman of the Military Liaison Committee (MLC), the DOD's link to the AEC: and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (largely following LeBaron's recommendations). The AEC, which preferred to base its production goals on a clear number of weapons rather than an arbitrary percentage increase in production, was troubled both by the huge costs associated with the increases and by the DOD's position that the AEC had no role in setting nuclear weapons policy but rather served essentially as a contractor to DOD, providing nuclear weapons and materials as required. (However, the AEC, as authorized by the Atomic Energy Act, retained custody of the nuclear stockpile, releasing weapons to the military only upon the authorization of the president. The JCS chafed at this arrangement, eventually gaining control of the arsenal from the AEC in stages from 1951 to 1967).
At a meeting with the MLC on October 5, 1951, Commissioner Henry Smyth, speaking for the AEC, stated that the military was moving far too quickly in deciding to increase production so dramatically. Given the cost of the proposals and their impact on the economy, Smyth argued, the decision to proceed lay not with the JCS or the AEC but with the president, the National Security Council, and Congress. The AEC, the MLC, and others were fully aware that the sizable outlays for the expansion program proposed in 1951 (and approved by Truman on January 16, 1952) would not have any meaningful impact on the size of the nuclear stockpile until 1956 and thus were of no use in addressing the threats raised by the Korean War (and could potentially divert resources necessary to prosecute the war). Indeed, Charles E. Wilson, with the Office of Defense Mobilization (and secretary of defense from 1953 to 1957), had written a memorandum criticizing the JCS for failing to justify the expansion program in light of these facts and during a meeting with Truman at the White House on January 16, 1952, argued that he saw no alternative, given the stated need for large numbers of weapons, although "the estimated requirements for critical materials and equipment had appalled him."
Between 1951 and 1955, the AEC obligated nearly $35 billion for construction at fissile material production sites, primarily to build new reactors and to expand the capacity of the gaseous diffusion plants. Carleton Shugg, the AEC's acting general manager, assessing the expansion proposed in 1950 (as a direct result of the outbreak of the Korean War) for 1951, considered the proposed expenditure of $883 million ($6.2 billion in 1996 dollars) in that one year to be a "fantastic sum," exceeding the peak annual expenditures of the Manhattan Project just seven years earlier. Completing the program, he realized, would clearly exceed the costs incurred during World War II. In 1953, at the beginning of the so-called 50-150 expansion program, the AEC obligated more than $19 billion for construction activities at materials production sites, or slightly less than the amount spent on the entire Manhattan Project during all of World War II.
As a result of these expenditures, both uranium enrichment and plutonium production capabilities were greatly increased. By 1954 the AEC had added four new buildings to the Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant and constructed a new five-building gaseous diffusion plant near Paducah, Kentucky. Two years later, a three-building plant was finished at Portsmouth, Ohio. Five new reactors--H, DR, C, KW, and KE--were constructed at Hanford and were producing plutonium by 1955. In addition, five new heavy-water reactors--R, L, P, K and C--were built at the new Savannah River Plant especially for producing plutonium, tritium, and other materials needed to build thermonuclear weapons. Large new reprocessing plants were built at both Hanford and Savannah River as well.
Operating costs also increased, although not as steeply as those for construction. Between 1950 and 1954, operating expenses increased threefold, from $710 million to more than $2.1 billion. By 1957, with all thirteen reactors and all three gaseous diffusion plants operating, the AEC had obligated more than $3.8 billion to produce fissile materials. These operations would make possible the rapid increases in the weapons stockpile to come (see box 1-1).
Obligations for procuring source materials, especially uranium, increased with the AEC's uranium enrichment and plutonium production capacities. Initially, the availability of uranium ore severely constrained Defense Department planning for nuclear weapons and AEC capabilities to produce uranium and plutonium. According to AEC documents, "the shortage of raw materials dictated the magnitude of military requirements. Not only were existing sources small in comparison with needs [in 1947] ... no known uranium source could supply the projected military requirements, and the extractive metallurgy of these sources had only begun to be studied."
During the closing days of World War II, the United States and Great Britain jointly sought rights to the high-grade uranium ore deposits in the Belgian Congo and moved to purchase lesser ores from gold mine tailings in South Africa and other foreign sources. When it was discovered that even lower grade ores could be processed to extract uranium concentrates, these foreign efforts were largely abandoned and significant resources were devoted to domestic production.
In 1948 the AEC stimulated domestic production by guaranteeing minimum prices for ten years for high-grade uranium concentrates and offered a $10,000 (then-year dollars, about $99,000 in 1996 dollars) bonus for the discovery of new high-grade deposits. Over the next twelve years, domestic raw materials production increased rapidly, as did procurement costs. Hence spending on raw materials increased throughout the 1950s. Eventually, actual uranium purchases by the AEC surpassed planned or even optimal processing requirements. Whereas the 1953 expansion assumed an optimal receiving rate of 9,150 tons of ore a year through the end of the decade, by 1958 domestic sources alone were producing nearly 18,000 tons of concentrate, while significant quantities of foreign uranium were also being purchased. Domestic production was then curtailed, but receipts from all sources did not peak until 1960, when the AEC purchased 34,600 tons.
By 1955 obligations for source materials were more than $1.5 billion, up from $334 million in 1950. By 1959 spending was in excess of $4.3 billion, and twenty-three ore-processing plants were operating in the United States.
Curtailment: Mid-1960s through 1980. The rapid growth of plutonium and HEU production in the 1950s led the United States to consider curtailing its production activities in the early 1960s. Satisfied that fresh material stocks, together with materials recycled from retired weapons, were sufficient to accommodate planned weapons production, the Johnson administration determined that the need to produce additional fresh plutonium and HEU had dramatically decreased.
These considerations led the United States to propose a fissile material production cutoff to the Soviet Union in 1963. The United States hoped to capitalize on the momentum generated by the recent signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) and the Washington-Moscow Hotline Agreement, and it sought to further reduce tensions between the superpowers while retaining a clear nuclear advantage.
Citing the substantial U.S. advantage, the Soviet Union refused to curtail fissile material production. In fact, some aspects of the Soviet program, in particular the gas centrifuge program to produce enriched uranium, were only then reaching maturity and full-scale operations. Had the Soviet Union cut production, it would have been left with far less fissile material than the United States, and more than a decade's worth of research and development would have been wasted.
Despite the Soviet refusal, the Johnson administration took several steps to reduce fissile material production. First, it unilaterally stopped producing HEU for weapons in 1964. While the AEC would continue to produce enriched material, primarily low-enriched uranium (LEU) for commercial nuclear power plants and HEU for naval propulsion reactors, the gaseous diffusion plants ceased to play a central role in materials production for nuclear weapons.
Plutonium production also was scaled back dramatically in the mid-1960s. Between 1964 and 1971 the administration closed the original eight Hanford reactors and converted the N reactor, in operation between 1964 and 1966, to maximize electricity production (it would be reconfigured to produce weapon-grade material in the early 1980s). At the Savannah River Plant, two reactors were shut down between 1964 and 1968, while the remaining three continued to produce plutonium and tritium until mid-1988.
Reprocessing was also scaled back. At Hanford, operations ceased in 1972 (although they resumed in the early 1980s). Spent fuel from the N reactor was stored in large concrete pools on site beginning in 1972. The fuel-grade plutonium in the spent fuel was to be recovered in the future for use in the never-realized U.S. breeder reactor program. However, the F and H canyons at Savannah River continued to operate.
Production budgets soon felt the impact of these trends. In 1964 annual obligations for operating expenses were more than $2.5 billion, not including the additional billions dedicated to procuring uranium and other materials. Ten years later, spending on source materials had virtually disappeared, and annual operating expenses were nearly one quarter of what they had been. By 1979, total budget authority for materials production, including both operating expenses and capital equipment and construction purchases, had fallen below $1 billion for the first time ever.
Resurgence: 1981-88. With the start of the Reagan administration, trends in materials production spending again reversed direction. Severa
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