Tennessee Valley Authority directors recently approved $3.25 million to help prepare the public power company’s Sequoyah nuclear power plant to produce tritium by late 2003 (see GSN, Oct. 3), the Associated Press reported Saturday.

The decision signaled that the utility is continuing with plans to produce tritium, a gas that boosts the power of nuclear weapons, at its Sequoyah and Watts Bar nuclear power plants, the Associated Press reported. 

Sequoyah and Watts Bar would be the first commercial plants to produce tritium for the military, according to the AP.  Some analysts have criticized the move, but former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson approved using a commercial plant in 1995 and Congress authorized the Tennessee Valley project in a 1999 energy bill.

“We are in a situation where the law is clear.  The Congress spoke, and the president signed the bill … It is a done deal,” said Max Clausen, an Energy official.

The Energy Department is responsible for paying the project’s expenses.  It would cost $25 million to prepare the plants and $9.9 million annually to produce 1.5 to 3 kilograms of tritium a year, according to the AP.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must first amend the authority’s operating licenses to allow it to produce tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, and that amendment could be a year away, the AP reported.  The NRC has not identified any reason to halt the project, said Mark Padovan, the NRC project manager, but he added, “We are still early in our evaluation.”

The U.S. tritium supply has decreased since the Energy Department stopped producing it in 1988.  The military has recycled tritium from retired nuclear weapons since then (Duncan Mansfield, Associated Press/Nuclear Control Institute, Jan. 26).

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP

Back to top