Tennessee Tritium Plant Ushers In Brave New Nuclear World

Tritium for weapons servicing has to come from somewhere, and it comes as a natural byproduct of running a nuclear reactor. For close to half a century, tritium for American nuclear weapons was produced at the government-owned Savannah River Nuclear Plant in South Carolina. Tritium (and plutonium) production at commercial power reactors was technically feasible but a political no-no. This artificial separation of military and civilian nuclear technology in America has been the foundation of Western nuclear non-proliferation efforts for decades to prevent other countries from becoming nuclear weapons states. By signing the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a county agrees to follow the U.S. example of military-civilian nuclear technology separation, and agrees to international inspection of its civilian nuclear facilities to insure no covert weapons programs are mixed in with legit electricity generation.

The times, they are a-changin’. Savannah River was shut down years ago as a decrepit old safety hazard, and America has serviced its nukes from stockpiled tritium that is now running low. Where to make more?

In Tennessee, of course, halfway between where I grew up in Chattanooga, went to college in Knoxville and worked on nuclear weapons for six years at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge after I got my degrees. In a few weeks the new Watts Bar Nuclear Plant will begin making tritum for the U.S. weapons program. This facility is owned not by the U.S. Government but instead by the civilian Tennessee Valley Authority electricity utility. For the first time ever, and from now on, there is and will be no distinction between the civilian and military nuclear programs in the United States.

The political effects of this little-noticed decision are likely to be profound. A major reason for the NPT has been undermined, and in the future all “civilian” nuclear facilities in every country can legitimately be seen as a potential threat to America. With the new American doctrine of preemptive war, the next logical step is…