AIKEN, SC – U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell today toured the new Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) and spoke at a celebration to mark the restoration of tritium production.  The tritium facility gives the U.S. the ability to replenish tritium supplies in nuclear weapons after 18 years of recycling it.  The extraction facility makes a key contribution to the safe inventory needed to maintain America’s nuclear weapon stockpile.

“I am pleased to be with you today to personally congratulate the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) employees at the Savannah River Site for their successful completion of this critical project,” Deputy Secretary Sell said.  “Through operations at the Tritium Extraction Facility, the United States is manufacturing an essential component of our nuclear defense system and helping to ensure the future safety, security, and reliability of our nuclear stockpile.”

On February 6, 2007, SRS completed the startup of the TEF and safely made the first transfer of new tritium gas to the nation’s tritium inventory.  Since SRS’s tritium production reactors were shut down in 1988, the United States has used tritium recycling operations to keep the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal viable.  As weapons were retired from the stockpile, their tritium gas was recovered and recycled for use in refurbished weapons.  Because tritium has a half-life of only 12.3 years, this practice provided only a short term solution.

"Now that tritium operations have begun at the Tritium Extraction Facility, we have restored an important capability to meet our future needs and continue to ensure the reliability and safety of the nuclear weapons stockpile,” said Thomas P. D’Agostino, NNSA’s Acting Administrator.  “This is a tremendous achievement for our country's stockpile, for NNSA, and for all the employees at the Savannah River Site who worked so hard to make this happen.”

Ground-breaking for the $506 million TEF project was held in July 2000 and construction was completed in January 2005.  Operational testing, training, and readiness reviews were completed over the past two years to allow this facility to begin processing tritium gas.  The completion of TEF, along with the $142 million Tritium Modernization and Consolidation Project completed in 2004, have provided this nation with state-of-the-art tritium capabilities that were previously carried out in an SRS facility which operated for over half a century.

Established by Congress in 2000, NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science.  NNSA maintains and enhances the safety, security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and abroad.

SRS is owned by DOE and operated by a team of contractors led by Washington Savannah River Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Washington Group International.

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