Arizona Utility May Bid for Nuclear Weapons Contract

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

ARIZONA UTILITY MAY BID FOR CONTRACT TO MAKE NUCLEAR BOMB
MATERIAL 
Electricity consumers would subsidize nuclear weapons industry
under Energy Department proposal
 
WASHINGTON, DC (GP) January 28, 1997 - A possible bid by
Arizona Public Services Company to produce tritium for
the US Department of Energy (DOE) could move Wintersburg's
Palo Verde reactors 1, 2, and 3 into the nuclear bomb business
at taxpayer expense, Greenpeace said today.  The DOE is
expected to begin officially soliciting bids from interested
utilities
around the country today.
 
Utilities in Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, South
Carolina and Tennesee have also expressed interest in
producing
tritium for warheads.  The DOE is rapidly proceeding with
plans to conduct a tritium test run at either Georgia's Vogtle
reactor
or Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar reactor this summer. 
  
"The DOE is blind-siding Arizona 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.  
 
Producing tritium in the Wintersburg reactor would also
exacerbate the already overwhelming nuclear waste crisis for
the state
and the nation.  A DOE environmental impact statement
estimates that a single reactor used for the tritium mission
would
generate three times more highly radioactive spent fuel than
under normal operating conditions, and roughly 50 percent more
"low level" waste, some of which is actually highly
radioactive.  Taxpayers will likely pick up the tab for
handling this added
waste burden.
 
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 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 U.S. 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.
 
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. 
 
"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