FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 1997NEWS MEDIA CONTACTS:
Chris Kielich/ Matthew Donoghue, 202/586-5806
Watts Bar Tritium Test Begins
The Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar nuclear plant has restarted, initiating a test of tritium production in a commercial light water reactor, the U.S. Department of Energy announced today.
On October 19, the Tennessee Valley Authority successfully completed the routine refueling outage at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant and returned the plant to service. During the outage, employees inserted 32 specially designed 12-foot "target" rods into four of the nearly 200 regular fuel assemblies in the plant's reactor core for a one-time confirmatory test for the Department of Energy. These rods, which contain no uranium or plutonium, are designed to replace a standard component of reactor fuel assemblies. During the plant's normal 18-month operating cycle, the test will produce about one ounce of tritium, none of which will be used in nuclear weapons. At the end of the fuel cycle, the rods will be shipped by the Energy Department to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for disassembly and examination.
The Energy Department is conducting the test as part of the department's "dual track" strategy to develop a new, assured source of tritium to support national security requirements. The tritium program is a key element in the department's stockpile stewardship program to ensure the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile without underground testing. A new tritium production source is expected to be selected by late 1998.
The Department of Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority announced plans in February of this year to conduct the confirmatory tests at Watts Bar, part of the Department of Energy's dual-track tritium plan and the subject of Nuclear Regulatory Commission public meetings in March and August. In September, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license amendment allowing the Watts Bar test to proceed.
The Watts Bar test completes, on a small scale, the demonstration of the entire commercial reactor tritium production cycle, from fabrication of components through completion of regulatory approvals. The Watts Bar test is intended to confirm the results of previous tests using rods of the same length as those now typically used in commercial reactors, as well as to provide confidence to utilities, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the public that tritium production in a commercial reactor is technically straightforward and safe.
- DOE -
R-97-111
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