WASHINGTON: US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has clarified that the nuclear tests ordered by President Donald Trump will not currently include actual nuclear explosions, easing global concerns that followed the president’s announcement.
The clarification comes after President Trump indicated he had ordered a resumption of nuclear explosions after a 33-year pause.
In an interview with Fox News, Wright, who heads the agency responsible for the US nuclear arsenal, stated that the tests being discussed are “system tests,” according to a Reuters report.
“I think the tests we’re talking about right now… are not nuclear explosions,” Wright said. “They’re what we call non-critical explosions.”
He explained that these tests involve checking all the other components of a nuclear weapon to ensure they are functioning correctly and can properly activate the capacity for a nuclear detonation.
The Secretary added that these tests would be conducted under a new system to ensure that newly developed replacement nuclear weapons are “better than the old ones.”
“With our science and computing power, we can… determine with extreme precision exactly what will happen in a nuclear explosion,” Wright explained. “And we can now test… what the consequences are when bomb designs are changed.”
Previously, President Trump had stated just before a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea that he had given an “immediate order” for the US military to resume nuclear weapons explosions.
However, when Trump was asked if these tests would include the underground nuclear detonations common during the Cold War era, he did not give a clear “no.” The US previously conducted nuclear explosions throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.
