A new facility designed to produce an essential component for nuclear weapons is running 25 percent over budget and is almost a year behind a schedule, according to a report released yesterday by the Energy Department inspector general (see GSN, Jan. 29).

The Savannah River Site facility was intended to produce tritium, a radioactive isotope that all U.S. thermonuclear weapons require.  The United States has not produced tritium since 1988, even though it decays over time.  The U.S. plan was to meet tritium needs with material from dismantled weapons, but the dismantlement did not proceed as planned in the late 1980s and authorities decided to build a new facility to produce tritium, according to the Washington Post.

Energy planned to build a $401 million tritium extraction facility by February 2006.  The inspector general, however, reported that the program’s cost had increased to $500 million and might not be completed until December 2006.

The delay might create an obstacle to continuing maintenance of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, the report says.   The United States has no other facility to produce tritium, so the “timely completion” of the Savannah River Site facility “is of critical importance,” Inspector General Gregory Friedman wrote.

The report also says the department’s contractor on the project, Westinghouse Savannah River Co., lacked proper documentation.  The inspector general said Westinghouse company managers must provide “sufficient supporting documentation for its current estimates” of costs and alternative strategies by next month (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, June 27).

About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines

HOME  |  CONTACT US  |  GET INVOLVED  |  SITE MAP

Back to top