Pantex Plant to store more nuclear materials produced at Los Alamos lab
The Pantex Plant located 17 miles northeast of Amarillo will store nuclear materials produced at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico after plans to build a 31,000-square-foot storage vault were scrapped in an effort to cut costs, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office released earlier this month.
The GAO report called into question the savings stated in the National Nuclear Security Administrations report on the proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility.
The facility, which would provide analysis in support of plutonium pit production at Los Alamos, was intended to include underground vaults to store the nuclear material. A plutonium pit, or core, is the heart of a nuclear weapon, according to the Pantex website.
Within the report, a Los Alamos contractor representative stated the planned nuclear material storage vault was eliminated and existing storage at the Pantex Plant would be used as a long-term vault for storing material used and generated at Los Alamos.
Read more: http://amarillo.com/news/2016-08-16/pantex-plant-store-more-nuclear-materials-produced-los-alamos-lab