United States Energy Secretary Chris Wright says planned nuclear tests will be “noncritical” and will not feature any nuclear explosions for now.This clarification on Sunday came three days after President Donald Trump announced he had instructed the Department of Defense to “immediately” restart testing of US nuclear weapons.What are ‘noncritical’ nuclear tests?“I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests,” Wright said on the Fox News show The Sunday Briefing.“These are not nuclear explosions. These are what we call noncritical explosions.”Wright explained that for now, only the components of nuclear weapons will be tested to ensure they work properly and can trigger a nuclear explosion. He said these tests will be conducted on new systems to ensure that replacement nuclear weapons are improvements on earlier models.“With our science and our computation power, we can simulate incredibly accurately exactly what will happen in a nuclear explosion,” Wright said. “Now, we simulate what were the conditions that delivered that and, as we change bomb designs, what will they deliver.”According to the website of the Washington, DC-based nonpartisan organisation Arms Control Association, several nonnuclear explosive techniques can be used for nuclear weapon development, monitoring and maintenance. These can also include “subcritical” experiments, which use plutonium but avoid nuclear chain reactions.“In this context, ‘noncritical’ nuclear tests involve testing of nuclear weapons delivery systems or compo …
