Date Published: December 5, 2006   

Operations begin at SRS tritium extraction facility

The Associated Press

A facility that will help restore the nation's ability to produce a key nuclear weapons component has opened at the Savannah River Site, officials said.

Operations began Monday at the $506 million facility, where tritium - the radioactive form of hydrogen gas - will be extracted from commercial nuclear fuel rods. The tritium is then shipped to the Department of Defense, where it is put into weapons.

Production of tritium at the former nuclear weapons complex near Aiken stopped in 1988. Fuel rods for the extraction will come from a Tennessee Valley Authority reactor.

"The National Nuclear Security Administration will be able to satisfy the nation's tritium needs indefinitely," said Thomas D'Agostino, the agency's deputy director of defense programs.

Westinghouse Savannah River Co., which oversees daily operations at the site, was penalized by the Department of Energy in 2003 for cost overruns and delays. Construction on the new facility, which employs about 100 people, was completed in January 2005, nearly a year ahead of schedule, officials said.