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TROUBLES WITH TRITIUM House amendment would limit pending U.S. decision over where to get key nuclear bomb component Jeff Johnson C&EN Washington
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ate this year, the Department of Energy will decide where it intends to get new supplies of tritium, a rapidly decaying radioactive gas that is a key substance in the manufacture of nuclear bombs. Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, breaks down to a form of helium at a rate of 5.5% per year. Its role in nuclear weapons is to increase explosive power. Tritium and deuterium are the H of a hydrogen bomb that uses the fission blast of plutonium or uranium to create the incredible heat to trigger the more powerful fusion reaction of these hydrogen isotopes. In 1988, the U.S. shut down its last tritium-producing reactor, operating at DOE's Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., because of safety concerns. In the meantime, the department has been recharging nuclear warhead reservoirs at the Savannah River Site with tritium removed from surplus nuclear weapons that were deemed unnecessary with the Cold War's end. DOE says it must begin producing new tritium supplies by 2005 and has picked two production options—constructing a linear accelerator at Savannah River or modifying fuel rods to be used at a commercial light-water reactor owned by the federal electric-power producer Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Both paths will be costly and controversial. The department may find itself in the paradox of spending more than $4 billion for new facilities to rearm nuclear weapons, while U.S. arms reduction negotiators successfully labor to make the facilities unnecessary. And like so many DOE decisions, especially those pertaining to the far-flung labs and weapons plants, this one will be strongly influenced by conflicting forces within regional politics, economics, and jobs, as well as international implications
inherent in building weapons of mass destruction in a time of peace. One tritium disagreement is expected to be addressed this week as a HouseSenate conference committee takes up conflicting versions of defense authorization bills. An amendment passed by the House in May and offered by Reps. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C), who represents the community where the accelerator would be located, and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) forbids DOE to manufacture tritium in commercial nuclear reactors—thereby closing the TVA option. The congressmen argued that to make tritium for weapons of mass destruction would violate a long-standing separation between the U.S. civilian nuclear energy program and the nation's weapons program. The Markey/Graham amendment adds tritium to a list of potential nuclear bomb componentsincluding plutonium and highly enriched uranium—that, under a 1983 amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, are banned from use in nuclear weapons if derived from commercial reactors.
Noting the recent Indian nuclear tests in which tritium likely was drawn from civilian reactors, Markey asked in a statement, "How can we argue with a straight face to nuclear threshold states that they should refrain from using their civilian nuclear programs for military purposes when we are violating this principle here at home?" He accused the U.S. of "preaching nuclear temperance from a bar stool." Immediately following the House vote, former Energy Secretary Federico Pefia voiced disappointment in the amendment and said it would greatly limit the department's options. The reactor path is far and away the least expensive of the two. Pena's views were shared by members of Congress from states where TVA's reactors are located. In late June, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) succeeded in adding an amendment to the Senate-passed defense authorization bill that would keep open the commercial reactor option. Sessions has been joined by other members, whose home states stand to profit from the new use of TVA reactors. Buttressing its position, DOE issued a congressionally required analysis on July 14—"Interagency Review of the NonProliferation Implications of Alternative Tritium Production Technologies." The report finds no nonproliferation problems with using a TVA reactor to make tritium and lays out DOE's perspective on the issue. In particular, it found past instances in which collaborations between U.S. civilian and military nuclear operations have existed, including past sales of military-generated tritium to commercial interests. The department also noted that
Cost conundrum impacts tritium plans Cost is sure to play a key role in the Department of Energy's decision of reactor versus accelerator for tritium production and in congressional oversight of DOE's plans. A thorough Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on the DOE options emphasizes, in part, the wildly varying cost estimates, particularly between the figures developed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) andDOE. Total costs for the light-water commercial reactor option, according to CBO, would reach $2.35 billion from 1997 to 2010, including seven years of operation at $50 million per year. This amount does not include $2 billion re-
quired to complete the Tennessee Valley Authority's two-unit Bellefonte facility, part of TVA's proposal DOE has estimated the costs to be $716 million, not counting Bellefonte construction or operating costs. For the accelerator, CBO estimates costs to be $6.72 billion through 2010, split between construction costs of $5.4 billion and operations at $180 million annually. DOE estimates the total construction costs to be $4.3 billion, not including operation. Besides cost of operation, the major source of difference in accelerator costs, according to CRS analyses, is CBO's inclusion of much larger "contingency funds" than DOE's.
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TVA is government owned and operated, making it comparable to past examples in which military-produced nuclear fuels were used in commercial enterprises. It did note, however, that "since the mid1960s no U.S. commercial nuclear power reactor has produced materials for use in nuclear weapons." The report also appeared to rule out a third approach to making tritium that had been under consideration since 1997—us ing the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) at DOE's Hanford Reservation in Richland, Wash. This reactor has been placed on "hot standby" at a total cost of about $40 million a year for this purpose. The report determined, however, that using the fuel sources being considered for FFTF—plutonium and highly enriched ura nium—runs counter to U.S. policies. In the case of uranium, the report also said tritium output from this power source is insufficient to meet need. Tritium "need," however, is strongly contested and depends in large part on the success of future nuclear arms reduc tions springing from the end of the Cold War. DOE officials and others estimate that there are about 9,000 strategic nuclear warheads in today's U.S. arsenal. Under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) Π, this number would drop to about 3,500 by 2007. The U.S. Senate has ratified START Π, but the agreement is in limbo, awaiting action of the Russian Duma. DOE estimates it needs 3 kg of tritium per year without START Π; 1.5 kg per year if it is ratified. START Π would allow DOE to put off new tritium production until 2011 and continue recycling tritium from weapons withdrawn from the stockpile. DOE critics such as Charles Ferguson, senior research analyst with the Federa tion of American Scientists, Washington, D.C., argue that missing from DOE's for mula is afive-yeartritium reserve the de partment maintains as well as some 2,500 "spare" nuclear weapons used as a hedge. Ferguson and others want these added to the number of dismantled warheads, further pushing off new tritium produc tion sources. In essence, critics want to use ever-decaying tritium as a driver for a harder push for further arms reductions. Also, a report by the Congressional Research Service notes that aggressive arms control advocates, including several retired generals, argue for reductions to 1,000 warheads or even less, putting off the need for tritium until 2035 or later. 42 JULY 27, 1998 C&EN
Others have suggested that the U.S. I purchase military-grade tritium. Although a commercial U.S. market exists, it is in the hundreds of grams per year, DOE of ficials say, whereas military needs are in the thousands of grams. Only two coun tries make tritium in sufficient quantities to sell to the U.S. government—Canada and Russia. But Canada will not sell triti um for military uses and the U.S. military will not purchase weapons material from a potential adversary, DOE officials say. Meanwhile, the two technology paths— the accelerator and reactor, "belt and sus penders" as former Energy Secretary Hazel R O'Leary called them—will be cut to one by DOE late this year. Capital costs for the two technologies are strikingly different. If the commercial reactor path is selected, DOE says, total costs would be $716 million for "radia tion services," which includes prepara tion of special rods in reactor fuel assem blies that will produce tritium in a com mercial reactor. To sweeten the deal, DOE has agreed to complete construction of TVA's longdelayed Bellefonte two-unit reactor facility in Hollywood, Ala. Construction would add $2 billion to the overall price, but DOE officials say this amount would be re couped through the sale of electricity. The accelerator option, DOE says, would run $4.33 billion for capital costs necessary to provide tritium for today's stockpile, or $3.86 billion for tritium at START II levels. Further complicating the plan is a DOE consideration to keep both options available to back up each other, which would require their continued technical development and add from $500 million to nearly $1 billion to the price tag. Both options use well-understood technical schemes to produce tritium, say Stephen M. Sohinki, director of com mercial light-water reactor production in DOE's Tritium Project Office, and Wil-. liam P. Bishop, director of accelerator production of tritium and Sohinki's ac celerator counterpart in the Tritium Proj ect Office. The reactor technology currently is being examined through a $7.5 million demonstration project at TVA's Watts Bar nuclear plant in Spring City, Tenn. It substitutes burnable fuel rods containing lithium for boron-based rods. When hit with neutrons, lithium generates tritium. The tritium is contained within the rod, bound up in a solid matrix with zirconi um. It will be extracted when rods are replaced during routine maintenance at
18-month intervals. The extraction will take place at the Savannah River Site. Sohinki says other DOE facilities have used the technology and shown it to work; the Watts Bar demonstration is in tended to increase the confidence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the public, who, during hearings on the project in August 1997, strongly op posed using TVA facilities. The Watts Bar rods will be removed next March, he says, and subjected to several tests. Sohinki adds that DOE has the option of using either Watts Bar or Bellefonte re actors. However, TVA spokeswoman Bar bara Martocci says Watts Bar can only be used on a "very short-term basis." No con tract has been signed, she adds, and TVA documents make clear Bellefonte's com pletion and use are key to any agreement. For the accelerator option, the biggest challenge, Bishop says, is "taking a re search tool to the status of a factory, tak ing milliamps of power and 6% duty cy cles to hundreds of milliamps and full-du ty cycles." The nearly mile-long accelerator begins by stripping protons off hydrogen gas, ac celerating the protons, and driving them into tungsten, the spallation source. This impact of protons on tungsten releases large quantities of neutrons, some of which are captured in a blanket of helium-3 gas to form tritium. Then tritium is extracted continuously from circulating helium and separated from impurities. Currently, a $400 million demonstra tion program for this accelerator is under way at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Bishop says. He predicts, that because weapons agreements limit need for triti um, the accelerator will gradually shift to making medical isotopes or possibly "transmutation of nuclear waste" to re duce radioactivity. The accelerator has the environmen tal advantage of not producing high-level radioactive waste but the disadvantage of burning huge amounts of electricity. "This will never be a white elephant," Bishop insists. "A few years ago, I would not have bet my mortgage on this tech nology. But I'd invest in it now. There is nothing anyone can think of that looks like a showstopper anymore." DOE's decision date can be no later than Dec. 31, under terms set by Con gress. Assuming Energy Secretary-desig nate Bill Richardson is confirmed by then, he will face a tough decision that will be closely watched by Congress, affected communities, the military establishment, and arms reduction advocates.^
