COMMERCIAL UTILITIES ARE GETTING INTO THE NUCLEAR BOMB BUSINESS Greenpeace Action Alert January 27, 1996 The Department of Energy (DOE) is looking to turn one or more commercial nuclear power plants into nuclear bomb plants. On January 28, the DOE will issue a Request for Proposals from commercial utilities interested in using their nuclear reactors to produce tritium for nuclear warheads. It's another sign that progress toward nuclear disarmament has stalled under President Clinton's watch. This policy, along with DOE plans to use commercial reactors to burn surplus plutonium from retired nuclear warheads, would shatter, once and for all, the mythical barrier between civilian and military nuclear energy. So far, nine U.S. utilities operating twelve nuclear power reactors are expressing interest in producing tritium for weapons. WHAT IS TRITIUM? Tritium, the "H" in "H-bomb", boosts the destructive power of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Bombard certain isotopes of either lithium or helium with neutrons and the result is tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. The United States does not currently have a means of producing this gas. The first step toward using a commercial nuclear power plant to produce tritium for nuclear weapons is to test the technology. The DOE has selected the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar reactor and Georgia Power Company's Vogtle plant for the "one time tritium production test program." According to press reports, the DOE will make a final decision on the tritium test run by this summer. MORE TRITIUM MEANS MORE NUCLEAR WASTE Using commercial nuclear reactors to produce tritium would exacerbate the already overwhelming national nuclear waste crisis. The Department of Energy's environmental impact statement for tritium production estimates that a single reactor used for the tritium mission would generate three times more highly radioactive spent fuel than under normal operating conditions. Producing tritium in commercial nuclear power plants would also result in roughly 50 percent more "low level" nuclear waste, some of which is actually highly radioactive. Taxpayers will likely pick up the tab for handling the extra waste. MORE TRITIUM MEANS MORE TAXPAYER DOLLARS DOWN THE NUCLEAR DRAIN The Department of Energy claims it needs a new source of tritium by 2005 because the radioactive gas has a relatively short half-life and must regularly be replenished. Aside from commercial reactors, other options being considered to furnish tritium are restarting the currently idle Fast Flux Test Facility - an experimental nuclear reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington - and building a new $14 billion linear accelerator at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina. A recently commissioned report by the Energy Department puts the total life cycle cost of using the Fast Flux Test Facility for a tritium mission at roughly $4 billion. A final decision on the principal source for U.S. tritium production is expected in 1998. U.S. taxpayers have already sunk an estimated $4 trillion into the nuclear arms race since 1942 and the DOE puts the cost of cleaning up the Cold War's radioactive legacy at over $270 billion. The quest for more tritium is simply the latest example of how nuclear weapons drain our economy. Now, the ratepayer may be forced to directly subsidize a nuclear weapons mission. However, these costs are unnecessary. DISARMAMENT IS THE ANSWER Tritium from the warheads being retired under provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) can be recycled. The United States also maintains a reserve stockpile of tritium that can be tapped into. Russian ratification of the START II treaty would effectively postpone the "need" for new tritium until at least 2011 and both President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin have pledged further reductions in the superpower arsenals, delaying the need for new tritium even further into the next century. From an environmental, economic, and national security standpoint, further progress toward nuclear disarmament makes more sense than seeking a new source for tritium. The Department of Energy states that "If the need for new tritium were significantly later than 2011, the Department would not have a proposal for new tritium supply, and would not be preparing a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Tritium Supply and Recycling." On the contrary, resuming tritium production would send a strong signal to Russia and the rest of the world that the United States plans to maintain a large nuclear arsenal indefinitely. WHAT YOU CAN DO: Write Acting Energy Secretary Charlie Curtis: Tell him: * Keep the plutonium out of the power plants and to keep the power plants out of the bomb business. * You oppose the use of commercial nuclear power reactors for the production of tritium for nuclear weapons. * NO MORE TAXPAYER MONEY DOWN THE NUCLEAR DRAIN! * Progress toward disarmament will alleviate the need for more tritium. Charlie B. Curtis Acting Secretary of Energy 1000 Independence Avenue Washington, DC 20585 Fax: 202-586-4403 Switchboard: 202-586-5000 Contact your utilities: Tell them: * You do not want your source of electricity to be a source for nuclear weapons material. * You oppose the idea of using commercial nuclear reactors for nuclear weapons missions, such as the production of tritium for nuclear warheads or the burning of nuclear weapons plutonium. For more information, including a list of nuclear power plants being considered for weapons missions, contact Bruce Hall at Greenpeace's Nuclear Disarmament Campaign See also: "Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Tritium Supply and Recycling," United States Department of Energy, Office of Reconfiguration, October 1995.