Reforming nuclear weapons policy, plutonium problems, and how physicists can help

Physicists invented nuclear weapons over seventy-five years ago. Today, they still threaten humanity with catastrophe and, recently, this risk has been increasing. The US has over 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons plus thousands more inactive or retired. Current policy calls for maintaining and "modernizing" about 4,000 nuclear warheads and their delivery vehicles, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars per year and entailing significant risks to the environment and public health. Physicists can play an important role in providing scientific oversight and advocating for reform. I will present my work as a Next-Generation Fellow with the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction. In particular, issues associated with plutonium pit production, which serves as a case study for US nuclear policy.