DOE Bringing Civil Nukes into Nuclear Weapons Business

["greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

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