Production of Tritium in Commercial Light Water Reactors

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy (DOE), is issuing this Record of Decision (ROD) for the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Production of Tritium in a Commercial Light Water Reactor (CLWR SEIS) (DOE/EIS-0288-S1) issued on March 4, 2016. NNSA prepared the CLWR SEIS to update the environmental analyses in the 1999 Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Production of Tritium in a Commercial Light Water Reactor (DOE/EIS-0288; the 1999 EIS). The CLWR SEIS provides analysis of the potential environmental impacts from Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rod (TPBAR) irradiation based on a conservative estimate of the tritium permeation rate through the TPBAR cladding, NNSA's revised estimate of the maximum number of TPBARs necessary to support the current and projected future tritium supply requirements, and a maximum production scenario of irradiating no more than a total of 5,000 TPBARs every 18 months. NNSA has decided to implement the Preferred Alternative, Alternative 6, which allows for the irradiation of up to a total of 5,000 TPBARs every 18 months using Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) reactors at both the Watts Bar and Sequoyah sites. Although near-term tritium requirements could likely be met with the irradiation of 2,500 TPBARs every 18 months, this decision provides the greatest flexibility to meet potential future needs that could arise from various plausible but unexpected events. The exact number of TPBARs to be irradiated during each/any 18-month reactor core cycle will be determined by both national security requirements and TVA reactor availability. The CLWR SEIS analyses indicate that there would not be any significant increase in radiation exposure associated with TPBAR irradiation for facility workers or the public. For all analyzed alternatives, estimated radiation exposures would remain well below regulatory limits. The calculated estimated exposures for normal reactor operations with even the maximum number of TPBARs are comparable to those for normal reactor operation without TPBARs.