Tritium Production Requirements

• Author: Environmental Law Institute
• Pages: 33-34

NEPA SUCCESS STORIES 33

A key to NEPA’s success is that alternatives to a pro-

posed action are analyzed and studied by agencies.

As illustrated by this case, the analysis of alternatives

provides an opportunity to compare options and

helps dene relevant issues.

e end of the Cold War led to dramatic reductions

in the size of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

is changed the U.S. Department of Energy’s

(DOE) focus regarding the types of facilities neces-

sary to support the stockpile. One aspect of this

support is the production of tritium, a radioactive

gas used in U.S. nuclear weapons, which must be

replaced periodically in nuclear weapons, due to its

decay rate of about 5.5 percent per year.

DOE began preparation of an Environmental Im-

pact Statement (EIS) in 1989 to evaluate alternative

reactor technologies to produce tritium based on

Cold War planning eorts [EIS for Siting, Construc-

tion, and Operation of New Production Reactor

Capacity, DOE/EIS-0144]. ree years later, the

Cold War had ended, and DOE was considering

that tritium requirements could drop by 75 percent.

In testimony before the House Armed Services

Committee in 1992, then-Secretary of Energy

Admiral (Retired) James Watkins explained that

the analyses performed for the tritium production

reactor EIS helped him avoid making a bad deci-

sion. “[T]hank God for NEPA because there were so

many pressures to make a selection for a technology

that might have been forced upon us and that would

have been wrong for the country,” he said.

Secretary Watkins described that, in the last years of

the Cold War, national security demands were press-

ing DOE to accelerate certain interim actions before

the tritium production reactor EIS was completed.

DOE expected to select two technologies and to lo-

cate a new reactor at each of two sites. DOE also was

making safety upgrades to an existing reactor that

would provide tritium until the new reactors were

operating. But world events provided new opportu-

nities, as Secretary Watkins said, “to really look seri-

ously at alternatives” previously rejected because they

could not provide sucient quantities of tritium.

DOE did not complete the tritium production reac-

tor EIS, and Secretary Watkins’ successor, Energy

Secretary Hazel O’Leary, eventually cancelled plans

to restart the existing production reactor. DOE pre-

pared a programmatic EIS to consider new alterna-

tives for the recycling of existing tritium supplies and

for the production of new tritium. It also prepared

tiered project-specic EISs on the favored alterna-

tives. In 1999, DOE announced that it would meet

requirements for new tritium production by irradiat-

ing tritium-producing rods in existing nuclear power

reactors operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Compared to the plans being pursued a decade ear-

lier, DOE’s nal decision saved taxpayers billions of

dollars in construction costs and tens of millions of

dollars per year in operating costs while still meeting

national security needs.

e close involvement of Secretaries Watkins and

O’Leary in the NEPA process resulted in substantial

improvements to DOE’s NEPA process as they ap-

preciated the value of the process.

Secretary Watkins told the House committee that he

“quickly learned that the NEPA process was not be-

ing used to provide complete and unbiased informa-

tion that top-level managers needed to make the best

decisions. erefore, I established new policies to

enhance and reinvigorate the DOE NEPA process.”

ese changes provided for state and tribal review of

Environmental Assessments (EAs), greater focus on

mitigation in certain EAs and EISs, incorporation

of NEPA milestones earlier in the planning process,

and senior ocials to be responsible for the quality

and suciency of EAs and EISs.

Secretary O’Leary strengthened the process further

to enhance public participation in DOE’s NEPA

TRITIUM PRODUCTION REQUIREMENTS

NEPA HELPS THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY RESPOND TO HISTORIC CHANGES