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backrounder
The
Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator
May 2005
The Bush
Administration has again
requested funding from
Congress to research a new
type of nuclear bomb. The
Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator (RNEP) is a nuclear
weapon that would burrow a few
meters into rock or concrete
before exploding and thus
generating a powerful
underground shock wave. Its
hypothetical targets are
deeply buried command bunkers
or underground storage sites
containing chemical or
biological agents.
The
RNEP budget:
RNEP is not just a feasibility
study: the Department of
Energy's 2005 budget included
a five-year projection—totaling
$484.7 million—for the
weapons laboratories to
produce a completed warhead
design and begin production
engineering by 2009.[1]
Last year, David L. Hobson,
the Republican chairman of the
House Appropriations Energy
and Water Development
Subcommittee, zeroed out FY05
funding for the program,
stating, "we cannot
advocate for nuclear
nonproliferation around the
globe, while pursuing more
usable nuclear weapons options
here at home." However,
the FY06 budget request
includes $4 million for RNEP
and an additional $4.5 million
to modify the B-2 bomber to
carry the weapon.
The
RNEP design:
Weapons designers at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory
intend to use an existing
high-yield nuclear warhead—the
1.2-megaton B83 nuclear
bomb—in a longer, stronger
and heavier bomb casing.
The B83 is the largest nuclear
weapon in the U.S. arsenal,
and nearly 100 times more
powerful than the nuclear bomb
used on Hiroshima.[1]
Technical
realities:
According to several recent
scientific studies, RNEP would
not be effective at destroying
many underground targets, and
its use could result in the
death of millions of people.[2]
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RNEP
would produce tremendous
radioactive fallout:
A nuclear earth
penetrator cannot
penetrate deep enough to
contain the nuclear
fallout. Even the
strongest casing will
crush itself by the time
it penetrates 10-30 feet
into rock or concrete.
For comparison, even a
one-kiloton nuclear
warhead (less than
1/10th as powerful as
the Hiroshima bomb) must
be buried at least
200-300 feet to contain
its radioactive fallout.[3]
The high yield RNEP will
produce tremendous
fallout that will drift
for more than a thousand
miles downwind. As,
Linton Brooks, the head
of the National Nuclear
Security Administration
told Congress in April,
"the laws of
physics will [never
allow a bomb to
penetrate] far enough to
trap all fallout. This
is a nuclear weapon that
is going to be hugely
destructive over a large
area" if it goes
off underground.
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RNEP
could kill millions of
people: A
simulation of RNEP used
against the Esfahan
nuclear facility in
Iran, using the software
developed for the
Pentagon, showed that 3
million people would be
killed by radiation
within 2 weeks of the
explosion, and 35
million people in
Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India would be
exposed to increased
levels of cancer-causing
radiation (see Figure
1).[4]
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Figure
1: Fallout from the use
of RNEP against the Esfahan
nuclear facility in Iran would
spread for thousands of miles
across Afghanistan, Pakistan
and India. It would kill 3
million people within 2 weeks
of the explosion and expose 35
million to cancer causing
radiation.
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RNEP
would not be effective
at destroying chemical
or biological agents:
Unless the weapon
detonates nearly in the
same room with the
agents, it will not
destroy them. Because
the United States is
unlikely to know the
precise location, size
and geometry of
underground bunkers, a
nuclear attack on a
storage bunker
containing chemical or
biological agents would
more likely spread those
agents into the
environment, along with
the radioactive fallout
(See Figure 2). [5, 6]
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Figure
2: Only a small region around
a nuclear explosion reaches
temperatures high enough to
sterilize chemical or
biological agents. But the
seismic shock or blast wave
propagates much further,
ejecting a large crater of
dirt and debris. Agents
stored within the crater
volume, but outside the small
sterilization zone, would be
dispersed into the environment.
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RNEP
would not be effective
at destroying the
deepest or widely
separated bunkers.
The seismic shock
produced by the RNEP
would only be able to
destroy bunkers to a
depth of about a
thousand feet. Modern
bunkers can be deeper
than that, with a widely
separated complex of
connected rooms and
tunnels.
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There
are more effective
conventional
alternatives to RNEP:
Current precision-guided
conventional weapons can
be used to cut off a
bunker's communications,
power, and air,
effectively keeping the
enemy weapons
underground and unusable
until U.S. forces secure
them. Sealing chemical
or biological agents
underground is far more
sensible than trying to
blow them up.
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References:
1. Medalia,
J., Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator Budget Request and
Plan, FY2005-FY2009.
March 24, 2004, Congressional
Research Service: Washington,
D.C. Available at: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/RS21762.pdf,
accessed May 2005.
2. National
Research Council, Effects
of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator
and Other Weapons. 2005.
Available at: http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11282.html,
accessed May 2005.
3. Nelson,
R.W., Low-Yield
Earth-Penetrating Nuclear
Weapons. Science &
Global Security, 2002. 10(1):
p. 1-20. Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/%7Eglobsec/publications
/pdf/10_1Nelson.pdf,
accessed May 2005.
4. Peter
Wilk MD, et al., Projected
Casualties Among U.S. Military
Personnel and Civilian
Populations from the Use of
Nuclear Weapons Against Hard
and Deeply Buried Targets.
2005, Physicians for Social
Responsibility. Available at:
http://www.psr.org/documents/psr_doc_0/
program_4/RNEP_Report_Final.pdf,
accessed May 2005.
5. Nelson,
R.W., Nuclear "Bunker
Busters" Would More
Likely Disperse than Destroy
Buried Stockpiles of
Biological and Chemical Agents.
Science & Global Security,
2004. 12(1-2): p. 69-89.
Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/~rnelson/papers/agent_defeat.pdf,
accessed May 2005.
6. May,
M., Haldeman, Z., Effectiveness
of Nuclear Weapons Against
Buried Biological Agents.
Science & Global Security,
2004. 12(1-2): p. 91-114.
For more information, contact
Dr. Robert Nelson, Senior
Scientist, Global Security
Program at rnelson@ucsusa.org
or 609-688-9595.
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