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The Obama administration has called for a second Tennessee nuclear plant to begin producing tritium for use in U.S. nuclear weapons, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported Wednesday (see GSN, Jan. 27).
(Feb. 5) -
The U.S. Energy Department's latest budget request calls for production of weapon-grade tritium at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah Nuclear Plant, shown above (U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority photo).
The Energy Department said its fiscal 2011 budget calls for the Tennessee Valley Authority's Sequoyah Nuclear Plant to start generating tritium gas -- a hydrogen isotope used to boost the explosive power of all U.S. nuclear weapons -- to help ensure that the military has an adequate supply of the material.
"Tritium is vital to maintaining a safe, secure and effective nuclear deterrent," department spokeswoman Jennifer Wagner said.
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar nuclear plant has produced weapon-grade tritium under a contract that the federal agency signed in 1999 with the Energy Department. The 35-year deal designates the Sequoyah plant as a secondary site for producing the gas (Dave Flessner, Chattanooga Times Free Press I, Feb. 3).
The two sites are the nation's only nuclear plants permitted to manufacture bomb-grade tritium as a secondary function (Pam Sohn, Chattanooga Times Free Press II, Feb. 4).
Producing tritium at the second site could raise the threat of terrorism in the region, one opponent of the move contended.
"There's simply no need to turn the Sequoyah nuclear power plant into a nuclear weapons plant. If they do that, it becomes much more of a target for terrorists wishing to strike out at the United States," said Ralph Hutchison, coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.
President Barack Obama "came into office with the idea that the days of doing what we say, not what we do, were over and America was going to lead by example," added Arjun Makhijani, head of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "In this arena, I think it's especially important that we stop making tritium as Watts Bar, not expand where we are making tritium to another plant."
The United States and Russia are currently negotiating nuclear arms reductions that would reduce the need for new tritium, Makhijani said, noting that material recovered from dismantled warheads could be reused (see related GSN story, today; Flessner, Chattanooga Times Free Press I).