The Savannah River Site has conducted three tritium extractions in the current fiscal year, furthering the Department of Energy facility’s goal of providing the gas for the nation’s defense program.
The DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Thursday that fiscal 2017 marks the first time the SRS Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF) has conducted more than one extraction in a single year.
SRS has conducted 12 extractions since they started the work in 2007.
The TEF removes the material from tritium-producing burnable absorber rods (TPBARs) that have been irradiated in commercial light-water reactors by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The tritium work at SRS is conducted by Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations contractor.
“Our ability to provide tritium is an important element to maintaining the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile,” NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said in a press release.
Located near Aiken, S.C., the Savannah River Site has been providing tritium since the 1950s. The gas triggers the chain reaction in a nuclear weapon and is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that decays over time. That’s why regular extractions are necessary.
NNSA officials who work with SRNS previously said they could not comment on how much tritium is extracted in each operation, or how much funding the program receives annually. However, they have said funding for operating the facility comes from the SRS weapons activities budget, which receives about $230 million a year.
In April, SRS reported that the TEF had returned to service for the first time since 2015. In June of that year, workers realized that three module stripper blowers needed repair. The motors in two had reached the end of their useful life, and the third was nearing its end. The module stripper system is used to maintain an atmosphere in modules where tritium extraction work is conducted on TPBARs.
The site had to put extractions on hold, but eventually restarted in March, following repairs and the completion of a readiness assessment.
“Knowing that we would be called upon to reach this level of production this year, we have been preparing to ensure that the people and the facility were ready to successfully complete the increased mission,” NNSA spokesman Greg Wolf said by email. “We have been placing particular emphasis on ensuring that we had adequate numbers of trained, qualified personnel for increased performance.”
