Plans by the US and UK governments to prolong the life of Trident nuclear weapons have hit a serious snag because of a dangerous and mysterious ingredient codenamed Fogbank. As a result, politicians are likely to come under pressure to fund the design of new warheads instead.
Both countries want to refurbish the ageing W76 warheads at the tip of Trident missiles, to make them safer and more reliable. But now their programmes face delays due to manufacturing problems at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge in Tennessee. A new $50 million plant built to replace a facility that had been demolished has run into teething troubles, suggests a series of hints from the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which runs Y-12.
In a bid to the US Congress for 2009 funding last month, the NNSA said that the plant鈥檚 operators faced 鈥渁 major technical challenge with the production of a critical material鈥� for extending the life of the W76 warhead. It didn鈥檛 spell out the exact nature of the difficulties.
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However, early last year Thomas D鈥橝gostino, the NNSA鈥檚 administrator, told a congressional committee that the problematic substance is named Fogbank. The NNSA was spending 鈥渁 lot of money鈥� trying to make this 鈥渧ery complicated material鈥� at Y-12, he said, 鈥渁nd we are not out of the woods yet鈥�.
Both the NNSA and the UK Ministry of Defence declined to speak to 快猫短视频 about the function of Fogbank. However, D鈥橝gostino provided a few clues in his evidence to Congress: he said it involved a solvent cleaning agent that was 鈥渆xtremely flammable鈥� and 鈥渆xplosive鈥�. The problem involved 鈥渄ealing with toxic materials 鈥� hazardous to our workforce 鈥� but it鈥檚 required鈥�.
Nuclear weapons experts speculate that the substance is associated with a foam that fills the space between the fission and fusion sections of the W76 bomb. According to one former nuclear weapons engineer in the UK, X-rays from the initial fission explosion could turn this foam into super-heated plasma, which could help compress and then ignite the fusion fuel. Others sources suggest it somehow helps to even out the way the force from the fission explosion compresses the fusion fuel.
Hans Kristensen, a nuclear expert from the Federation of American 快猫短视频s in Washington DC, says that the problems at Y-12 could have 鈥渟erious implications鈥� for the US and UK Trident programmes. If the problems can鈥檛 be solved, he predicts government nuclear scientists would argue that developing a replacement warhead had become a 鈥渘ational emergency鈥�.
John Ainslie, who has been researching Fogbank for the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Glasgow, is concerned that officials at the US Department of Energy will use Fogbank鈥檚 problems as an excuse to build new nuclear weapons. 鈥淩eplacing Fogbank with an alternative material won鈥檛 make nuclear weapons cheap or safe,鈥� he says.
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