NNSA Nevada upgrades won’t be available for plutonium tests until 2030 - It's delayed but on track to reach key milestones. Obviously, or maybe not, nuclear testing never stopped--the testing was obsfuscated over time and with improving technology. In the early 1960s, (open-air A and H bomb) testing was moved underground, but subterranean cavity radiation leaks continued to poison the biosphere. In the late 1990s, the testing was wrapped in verbal camouflage and called "subcritical". Under the Obama administration, the subcrits became Scaled, but no one likes to point out that the dynamic of diminishing the nuclear test is being reversed through scaled warhead primary testing.
The Nuclear Tests in Verbal Camouflage
Update: President Joe Biden's third subcritical nuclear test is planned for this AUGUST. See bottom of page.
'The Nuclear Age Has Had a Fearful Cost'209 days
In Las Vegas, Nevada, millions of tourists each year are greeted by dazzling sights such as the half-size replicas of the Statue of Liberty and the Parisian Eiffel Tower.
Contrasting with these attractive mockups of the world's most iconic and admired structures are unannounced plutonium blast experiments -- called subcritical nuclear tests, involving scale models of nuclear warheads -- sporadically conducted at a restricted government site eighty miles northwest of the Strip.
When the Biden administration carried out its second subcritical nuclear experiment in September 2021, it remained a secret for 209 days.
Excerpt from U.S. Sneaks In Vega, Its 28th Subcritical Nuclear Test:
In 1997, beginning with 'Rebound,' the Department of Energy started providing a 48-hour notification prior to each subcritical test to various governments, organizations, and the media. For over a decade, the Energy Department, and later the NNSA, consistently adhered to this policy of prior notifications and also issuing a press release within hours or a day of each test.
In September 2010, for its 24th subcritical nuclear test named 'Bacchus,' the NNSA abandoned its voluntary policy of providing a 48-hour notice and, months later, the agency first began to opt out of issuing a press release following a subcritical test. In fact, in late 2010 and early 2011, the NNSA conducted two subcritical tests, 'Barolo A' and 'Barolo B,' that were not followed up by any confirmatory announcements for months.'
After the NNSA conducted the Barolos-the 25th and 26th subcritical nuclear experiments or SNEs-in late 2010 and early 2011, news of the two SNEs was only first published in June 2011, delivered in tabulated form-without the Barolo name-appearing in an Administration PDF report.
In 2022, in the wake of the 5th scaled U.S. subcritical nuclear test, President Biden's belated 209-day announcement for a 2021 subcritical nuclear test set a new record of SNEs non-transparency. U.S. agencies and media are still censoring the fact these tests are scaled.
The U.S. has conducted 32 subcritical nuclear experiments since the end of the Cold War to ensure the stockpile is resilient.