FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          JANUARY 27, 1998
 
              DOE BRINGING CIVILIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS 
           INTO NUCLEAR WEAPONS BUSINESS, GREENPEACE CHARGES
 
WASHINGTON, DC (GP) January 27, 1997 - Greenpeace said today that the Department of Energy's (DOE's) plan
to produce tritium for nuclear weapons in commercial nuclear reactors is tantamount to turning one or more of the nation's
civilian nuclear power plants into nuclear bomb plants.  The charge comes as the DOE prepares to publish on January 28th
a draft "Request for Proposals related to the production of tritium using commercial light water reactors."
  
Utilities in Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington State have
expressed interest in producing tritium for warheads.  The DOE is also rapidly proceeding with plans to conduct a tritium
test run at either Georgia Power's Vogtle reactor or TVA's Watts Bar reactor this summer.
 
"The DOE is blind-siding electricity consumers into directly subsidizing the nuclear weapons industry," said Greenpeace
Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner Bruce Hall.  "This ill-conceived plan will shatter, once and for all, the historical
distinction between civilian and military nuclear technology."
 
Tritium, the "H" in "H-bomb", boosts the destructive power of the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal.  It is made by
bombarding certain isotopes of either lithium or helium with neutrons.  The DOE hasn't produced tritium since 1988 when
the Savannah River Plant's K-reactor was shutdown for safety and environmental reasons.  The DOE claims it needs a
new tritium source by 2005 because the radioactive gas has a relatively short half-life and must be regularly replenished. 
 
Hall said the DOE has based its tritium requirements on maintaining a START I arsenal of roughly 10,000 nuclear
weapons, even though other parts of the Clinton administration are trying to reach agreement with Russia on a framework
agreement for a START III treaty that would reduce the superpowers' arsenals to roughly 1,500 or 2,000 deployed nuclear
weapons each.  Tritium from nuclear warheads being retired can be recycled into the warheads remaining in the arsenal. 
The United States also maintains a reserve stockpile of tritium that could be tapped into.  Russian ratification of the
START II treaty would postpone the "need" for tritium until at least 2011 and a START III treaty would delay the "need"
for a new tritium source even further into the 21st Century.
 
"Resuming tritium production would send a strong signal to Russia and the rest of the world that the United States plans
on maintaining a huge nuclear arsenal indefinitely," Hall said.  "The Clinton administration has to shed this Cold War
mentality and direct its energy toward reducing nuclear weapons, not perpetuating the nuclear arms race."
 
Other DOE options for tritium production are: 1) restarting the currently idle Fast Flux Test Facility - an experimental
nuclear reactor at Hanford, Washington which would cost $4 billion over its lifetime - and 2) building a new $14 billion
linear accelerator at the Savannah River Plant in South Carolina.  The DOE plans to make a final decision on the principal
source for tritium production in December 1998, but will award a tritium contract to one or more utilities early next year. 
 
"Taxpayers have sunk four trillion dollars into the nuclear arms race since 1942.  The Energy Department's expensive
quest for tritium is simply the latest example of how nuclear weapons continue to drain the U.S. economy," Hall said. 
"From an environmental, economic, and national security standpoint, further progress toward disarmament makes more
sense than seeking to a new source of tritium."
 
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Bruce Hall at Greenpeace's Nuclear Disarmament Campaign -
(202) 319-2514 or Deborah Rephan at Greenpeace's Newsdesk - (202) 319-2492