U.S. Civilian Reactor Produces Tritium

Ron Gurantz

Departing from a long-standing U.S. tradition of separating civilian and military nuclear activities, Washington transferred tritium produced in a commercial nuclear reactor in late August to a Department of Energy facility in South Carolina for eventual use in nuclear weapons. <snip>

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_10/OCT-tritium.asp

I would be interested in knowing what the pro-nuclear-power DUers think about this. I am not asking for a fight. It's a serious question.

was intended to produce a pool of engineering talent for the ongoing weapons program,while cloaking the iron fist of the weapons program in a pleasant-sounding "Atoms for Peace" velvet glove.

The predominantly national security focus of the implementing legislation ("The Atomic Energy Act of 1954") is entirely clear.

Until about thirty years ago, both aspects were jointly overseen by the Atomic Energy Commission, which (however) was eventually "reformed" by spliting it into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Department of Energy.

Despite the name, the "Department of Energy" essentially oversees the weapons program, together a catastrophic pollution legacy.

I have watched for some decades now, as administration after administration threatened to commandeer a civilian nuclear reactor to produce tritium for the hydrogen bomb stockpile.

Apparently, this finally occurred while I was distracted by some other horror ...

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the topic of the post.

Since this has now actually occurred, your insistence - that only 'morons' could imagine a relation between civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons - sheds little light on anything except your personality and propaganda style ...

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~15% of the original Pu remains in the irradiated fuel.

The US is spending billions of dollars to build MOX fuel facilities (can you say pork????) and then has to PAY utilities to use it.

One utility has pulled out of this program because of unfavorable economics.

It is indeed safer-cheaper-easier to blend-down weapons-grade Pu, sinter it into a ceramic matrix and bury it.

BTW: the US nuclear fuel cycle has ALWAYS been dual-use. The same uranium enrichment facilities that produce HUE for the weapons program are the same facilities that enriched uranium for US nuclear power plants.

<snip>

Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as Amended in NUREG-0980

This Act is the fundamental U.S. law on both the civilian and the military uses of nuclear materials. <snip>

Energy Reorganization Act of 1974

This Act established the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, a single agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, had responsibility for the development and production of nuclear weapons and for both the development and the safety regulation of the civilian uses of nuclear materials. The Act of 1974 split these functions, assigning to one agency, now the Department of Energy, the responsibility for the development and production of nuclear weapons, promotion of nuclear power, and other energy-related work, and assigning to the NRC the regulatory work, which does not include regulation of defense nuclear facilities. <snip>

http://www.nrc.gov/who-we-are/governing-laws.html

You get more bang for your buck with a tritium boost.

If we want to reduce the stockpile of nuclear weapons it needs to be done in a straightforward manner. Reducing the supply of tritium was never a viable anti-nuclear weapons strategy. In the cult of the bomb, the bombs must be fed.