[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 88 (Friday, May 5, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 26259-26262]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-11222]


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TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY


Production of Tritium for the United States Department of Energy, 
Rhea and Hamilton Counties, TN

AGENCY: Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

ACTION: Issuance of Record of Decision and Adoption of Final 
Environmental Impact Statement for the Production of Tritium in a 
Commercial Light Water Reactor (CLWR) prepared by the U.S. Department 
of Energy (DOE).

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SUMMARY: This Record of Decision (ROD) is provided in accordance with 
the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations found at 40 CFR 
parts 1500 to 1508 and TVA procedures implementing the National 
Environmental Policy Act.
    TVA has decided to enter into an interagency agreement with DOE 
under The Economy Act (31 U.S.C. 1535) to provide irradiation services 
for producing tritium in TVA light water reactors. These reactors are 
Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1, Rhea County, Tennessee and Sequoyah 
Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, Hamilton County, Tennessee. The TVA Board 
of Directors passed a resolution approving the interagency agreement on 
December 15, 1999.
    The environmental impacts of producing tritium in these reactors as 
well as in TVA's Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, Jackson 
County, Alabama were assessed in a 1999 Final Environmental Impact 
Statement (EIS) for the Production of Tritium in a Commercial Light 
Water Reactor (DOE/EIS-0288) prepared by DOE. TVA was a cooperating 
agency in the preparation of this EIS. Under 40 CFR 1506.3(c) of the 
CEQ regulations, TVA has independently reviewed the EIS prepared by DOE 
and found it to be adequate and with this notice is adopting the EIS, 
including the preferred alternative.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Greg Askew, P.E., Senior NEPA 
Specialist, Tennessee Valley Authority, 400 West Summit Hill Drive, 
mail stop WT 8C, Knoxville, Tennessee, 37902; telephone 865-632-6418; 
or e-mail <a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#1c7b7d6f77796b5c686a7d327b736a"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="5e393f2d353b291e2a283f70393128">[email protected]</span></a>.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

DOE's Mission and the Nation's Tritium Need

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is responsible for supplying 
nuclear materials for national security needs and ensuring that the 
nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable. Tritium, a 
radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is an essential component of every 
weapon in the current and projected U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. 
Unlike other nuclear materials used in nuclear weapons, tritium decays 
at a rate of 5.5 percent per year. Accordingly, as long as the Nation 
relies on a nuclear deterrent, the tritium in each nuclear weapon must 
be replenished periodically. At present, the U.S. nuclear weapons 
complex does not have the capability to produce the amounts of tritium 
that will be required to support the Nation's current and future 
nuclear weapons stockpile.
    In recent years, international arms control agreements have caused 
the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile to be reduced in size. Reducing the 
stockpile has allowed DOE to recycle the tritium removed from 
dismantled weapons for use in supporting the remaining stockpile. 
However, due to the decay of tritium, the current inventory of tritium 
will not meet national security requirements past approximately 2005. 
Therefore, the most recent Presidential direction, contained in the 
1996 Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Plan and an accompanying Presidential 
Decision Directive, mandates that new tritium be available by 
approximately 2005.
    In December 1995, DOE issued a Record of Decision (ROD) (60 FR 
63878) for the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for 
Tritium Supply and Recycling (DOE/EIS-0161). In this ROD, DOE decided 
to pursue a dual-track approach on the most promising tritium-supply 
alternatives: (1) to initiate purchase of an existing commercial 
reactor (operating or partially complete) or irradiation services with 
an option to purchase the reactor for conversion to a defense facility; 
and (2) to design, build, and test critical components of an 
accelerator system for tritium production. Under the dual-track 
approach described in the December 1995 ROD issued by DOE, the agency 
was to select within 3 years one of these two technologies as the 
primary source of tritium.

Production of Tritium in a Commercial Light Water Reactor

    The production of tritium in a CLWR is technically straightforward 
and requires no elaborate, complex engineering development and testing 
program. All the Nation's supply of tritium has been produced in 
reactors. Most existing commercial pressurized water reactors utilize 
12-foot-long rods containing an isotope of boron (boron-10) in ceramic 
form. These rods are sometimes called burnable absorber rods. The rods 
are inserted in the reactor fuel assemblies to absorb excess neutrons 
produced by the uranium fuel in the fission process for the purpose of 
controlling power in the core at the beginning of an operating cycle.
    DOE's tritium program has developed another type of burnable 
absorber rod in which neutrons are absorbed by a lithium aluminate 
ceramic rather than boron ceramic. While the two types of rods function 
in a very similar manner to absorb excess neutrons in the reactor core, 
there is one notable difference: When neutrons strike the lithium 
aluminate ceramic material in a tritium producing burnable absorber rod 
(TPBAR), tritium is produced. This tritium is captured almost 
instantaneously in a solid zirconium material in the rod, called a 
``getter.'' The solid material that captures the tritium as it is 
produced in the rod is so effective that the rod will have to be heated 
in a vacuum at much higher temperatures than normally occur in the 
operation of a light water reactor to

[[Page 26260]]

extract the tritium for eventual use in the nuclear weapons stockpile.
    These TPBARs would be placed in the same locations in the reactor 
core as the standard burnable absorber rods. There is no fissile 
material (uranium or plutonium) in the TPBARs. Depending upon tritium 
needs, up to as many as 2,400 TPBARs could be placed in a CLWR for 
irradiation.

TVA's National Defense Role

    TVA has a history of supporting national defense programs. The 
preamble to the TVA Act of 1933 identifies national defense as one of 
the purposes for its enactment. Further, the TVA Act in Sections 15(h) 
and 31 declares that the Act should be liberally construed to aid TVA 
in discharging its responsibilities for the advancement of national 
defense and other statutory purposes. In compliance with that 
Congressional mandate, TVA has supported the Nation's defense efforts 
on numerous occasions.
    TVA constructed hydroelectric plants in record time to supply 
electric power to key defense industries during World War II including 
aluminum production and Manhattan Project activities at Oak Ridge, 
Tennessee. TVA produced phosphorus and ammonium nitrate for explosives 
and munitions during World War II and the Korean conflict. From 1952 to 
1957, TVA, under an agreement with the Department of the Army, operated 
and maintained the Phosphate Development Works (PDW) complex at which 
various phosphorus based chemical agents were produced. From 1985 to 
1988, under a contract with the Department of Defense, the PDW was 
refurbished to process and purify the Department of Defense's remaining 
stock of methyl phosphonic dichloride, a chemical agent component. TVA 
continues to support defense missions today with the cleanup of 
chemical and munitions production and storage sites as well as 
stabilization or disposal of surplus chemical weapons stockpiles.

The Procurement Process

    The DOE issued a request for proposal RFP DE-RP02-97DP00414 on June 
3, 1997 to all nuclear utilities to obtain a fixed price bid for 
irradiation services with an option to lease or purchase a facility, if 
necessary, in one or more commercial light water reactors. TVA 
responded to the RFP on September 15, 1997 with 2 offers:
    (1) An Economy Act Proposal \1\ for completion of one unit at the 
Bellefonte Nuclear Plant with Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1 as a 
backup facility. This proposal is referred to as the Bellefonte Revenue 
Sharing Offer.
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    \1\ Because both TVA and DOE are Federal agencies, an 
interagency agreement may be reached via the Economy Act (31 U.S.C. 
1535). The Economy Act is a Federal law that allows two government 
agencies to enter into an interagency agreement similar to the 
contractual agreement that a Federal agency would enter with a non-
Federal party through the competitive procurement process. The 
Federal procurement process for the CLWR program explicitly allows 
for an interagency agreement via the Economy Act.
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    (2) A commercial proposal responsive to the RFP to provide 
irradiation services using Watts Bar Unit 1. This proposal is referred 
to as the Watts Bar Irradiation Services Offer.
    On November 16, 1998, DOE requested TVA to revise and resubmit a 
stand alone proposal for the purchase of irradiation services from 
TVA's operating plants at Watts Bar and Sequoyah. On December 8, 1998, 
TVA submitted a revised Watts Bar Nuclear Plant/Sequoyah Nuclear Plant 
Services Offer as a commercial proposal for irradiation services using 
Watts Bar Unit 1 and one unit at Sequoyah for backup and surge 
production capacity.
    On December 22, 1998, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced 
that tritium production in one or more CLWRs would be the primary 
tritium supply technology and that the accelerator would be developed, 
but not constructed, as a backup to CLWR tritium production. Secretary 
Richardson further stated that the Watts Bar and Sequoyah reactors had 
been designated as the preferred alternative for CLWR tritium 
production. At the same time, Secretary Richardson also requested that 
TVA negotiate an interagency agreement under the Economy Act for 
irradiation services using Watts Bar Unit 1 and one unit at Sequoyah.

Alternatives Considered

    TVA submitted the only responsive proposal to DOE's RFP as part of 
the procurement process described above. As a result, the following 
five TVA reactors were the only reactors considered in developing 
alternatives.

<bullet> Watts Bar Nuclear Plant Unit 1, Rhea County, Tennessee
<bullet> Sequoyah Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, Hamilton County, 
Tennessee, and
<bullet> Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, Jackson County, 
Alabama.

    One or more of these reactors could be used to produce the tritium 
necessary to meet national security requirements. Therefore, scenarios 
comprising various combinations of the five TVA reactors were 
considered reasonable alternatives the impacts of which were addressed 
in the EIS. The transportation of irradiated TPBARs from the reactor to 
the DOE Savannah River Site for processing is also a part of each 
alternative.
    TVA's No Action alternative to the use of CLWRs for tritium 
production is the continued operation of Watts Bar Unit 1 and Sequoyah 
Units 1 and 2 and the deferral of construction activities necessary for 
completion of Bellefonte units 1 and 2 as nuclear units.

Preferences Among Alternatives

    DOE's considerations included a desire for low capital cost (low 
first cost). Also, there is uncertainty in DOE's long-term tritium 
production requirement with pending ratification of the Strategic Arms 
Reduction Treaty (START II) by Russia and potential future treaty 
negotiations. These factors favored selection of a flexible approach 
not requiring an immediate major commitment of resources by DOE such as 
would be required for completion of Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Unit 1. 
Therefore, DOE's preferred alternative was the combination of existing 
reactors at Watts Bar and Sequoyah Nuclear Plants.

Environmental and Other Considerations of the Decision

Environmental Considerations

    The EIS considered two environmentally-distinct sets of 
alternatives: (1) Alternatives involving the use of only existing 
operating reactors at Watts Bar and Sequoyah Nuclear Plants, and (2) 
alternatives that included the completion and startup of the unfinished 
Bellefonte Nuclear Plant Unit 1 or Units 1 and 2.
    Described below are the relative differences in environmental 
impacts between tritium production in operating CLWRs (Watts Bar Unit 1 
and Sequoyah Units 1 and 2 are used in the analysis) and an incomplete 
CLWR (Bellefonte Unit 1). For an incomplete CLWR, the environmental 
analysis attributes all of the impacts from completing construction and 
operating the plant to the tritium production mission.
Construction Impacts
    For tritium production in a CLWR, construction impacts would range 
from none (for operating CLWRs) to minor (for a CLWR which is currently 
approximately 90 percent complete, and would only require internal 
modifications). The predominant construction impact associated with an 
incomplete CLWR would be on socioeconomics, as approximately 4,500 
direct jobs and 4,500 indirect jobs could be created during the peak 
year of construction. The creation of

[[Page 26261]]

approximately 9,000 total jobs would have a significant positive impact 
on the economic area surrounding the incomplete reactor. By contrast, 
use of an existing CLWR would have no socioeconomic impacts. For all 
alternatives, the environmental impacts associated with construction 
are considered small.
Operating Impacts
    For an operating CLWR, there would either be no impacts, or 
negligible impacts, to resources such as: land, infrastructure, noise, 
visual, air quality, water resources (use and quality), geology and 
soils, archeological and historic, and socioeconomics. Tritium 
production could cause additional impacts in the following resources: 
spent fuel generation; human health (normal operations and accidents); 
low-level radioactive waste (LLW) generation; and transportation.
    For the alternative that would complete, start up, and operate an 
incomplete reactor, the operating impacts include those impacts 
associated with a new commercial nuclear power plant. The following 
resources would be affected: infrastructure (including visual 
resources); water resources; spent fuel generation; human health 
(normal operations and accidents); LLW generation; transportation; and 
socioeconomics.
Infrastructure
    The production of tritium in an operating CLWR would have no impact 
on the local infrastructure. The impacts of operating a newly completed 
reactor would produce more than 1,200 megawatts of usable electric 
power. In an area such as the Tennessee Valley, this beneficial impact 
would tend to reduce the need for operation of coal-fired or gas-fired 
power plants, or could offset the need for additional power plants in 
the future, potentially reducing future air emissions. Although visual 
resources surrounding the incomplete reactor site would be negatively 
impacted by a cooling tower plume, this is not significant enough to 
change the plant's existing visual resource classification.
Spent Fuel
    The operating reactors considered here each contain 193 fuel 
assemblies. At each refueling a percentage of these assemblies are 
removed from the reactor and placed in the reactor's spent fuel storage 
pool. The number of assemblies of spent fuel generated by an existing 
reactor could increase as a result of tritium production. Increases 
could range from approximately zero (0) to 60 spent fuel assemblies per 
cycle depending on the number of TPBARs loaded. The environmental 
impacts associated with long-term, on-site, dry-cask storage of spent 
fuel are not significant. For an incomplete CLWR, approximately 72 
spent fuel assemblies would be generated during reactor operations 
without tritium production. Increases in spent fuel could range from 
zero (0) to approximately 69 additional spent fuel assemblies depending 
on the number of TPBARs loaded. In this regard, it is DOE's intention 
to minimize the generation of additional spent fuel by limiting the 
number of TPBARs inserted in a single reactor. Thus, operation of a 
newly completed reactor would generate the most spent fuel; by 
contrast, use of currently operating reactors could lead to a limited 
incremental increase in spent fuel.
Human Health (Normal Operations)
    By adding tritium production to the currently operating reactors, 
there would be additional radiation doses to workers and the public 
from tritium production. The incremental increase in annual average 
worker dose is estimated at approximately 1.1 millirem, while the total 
population dose within 50 miles is estimated to increase by 
approximately 2.0 person-rem per year during normal operations. In 
terms of potential impacts, these values are not significant. For 
example, a 2.0 person-rem dose translates into a latent cancer fatality 
risk of 1 in 1,000 years. For the average worker, a 1.1 millirem annual 
dose translates to a risk to that worker of a latent cancer fatality 
every 2.3 million years.
    By finishing the incomplete reactor and operating it to produce 
electricity and tritium, there would be radiation doses to workers and 
the public that do not currently occur. The average annual worker dose 
is estimated at a maximum of approximately 105 millirem, of which 104 
millirem would result from operation of the reactor to produce 
electricity, and 1.1 millirem would be from tritium operations. The 
annual total population dose within 50 miles is estimated to be a 
maximum of approximately 2.3 person-rem. In terms of potential impacts, 
these values are not significant. For example, a 2.3 person-rem dose 
translates into a latent cancer fatality risk of 1 in 870 years. A 105 
millirem annual dose translates to a risk to an average worker of a 
latent cancer fatality every 23,000 years. Radiological impacts for 
normal operations are considered small for all alternatives. Use of an 
operating CLWR would have the smallest impact to workers.
Human Health (Accidents)
    The CLWR EIS provides a detailed evaluation of impacts from 
accidents on a site-specific basis for the CLWR reactor alternatives. 
The CLWR EIS documents that the potential impacts from tritium 
production on accident impacts is small. For design-basis accidents at 
operating reactors, the risk of a latent cancer fatality to an average 
individual from tritium production in the 50-mile population 
surrounding a CLWR would be approximately 1 in 480 million years. At 
the incomplete reactor site, this risk would be approximately 1 in 1.3 
billion years. For beyond design-basis accidents, tritium production 
would result in very small changes in the consequences of an accident. 
This is due to the fact that the potential consequences of such an 
accident would be dominated by radionuclides other than tritium. At the 
operating reactors, the additional risks to the 50-mile population from 
adding tritium production would be less than one additional cancer per 
every 7,100 years from a beyond design-basis accident. At the 
incomplete reactor site, the total risk of the new reactor and the 
added tritium mission to the 50-mile population would be approximately 
1 latent cancer fatalities per 5,500 years from a beyond design-basis 
accident. The risks associated with accidents are small for all the 
CLWR tritium production alternatives.
Low-Level Radioactive Wastes
    Low level waste (LLW) generation at the operating reactors could 
increase by 0.43 cubic meters annually as a result of tritium 
production. TVA may store this LLW onsite for the life of the plant. 
The newly completed reactor would generate approximately 40 cubic 
meters of LLW annually which may also be stored onsite for the life of 
the plant. Although all of the waste generation impacts are acceptable, 
the use of currently operating reactors would generate the smallest 
amount of low-level wastes from tritium production. For all 
alternatives, the environmental impacts of all waste types, including 
low-level waste would be small and manageable with existing facilities.
Socioeconomics
    Little or no socioeconomic impact is expected by adding the tritium 
production mission at an operating CLWR. Operation of a newly completed 
CLWR would add approximately 800 direct and 800 indirect jobs. The 
socioeconomic impacts of the 1,600

[[Page 26262]]

total jobs would have a positive impact on the economic area 
surrounding the reactor site. Operation of a newly completed reactor 
would have the greatest positive socioeconomic impacts, while use of 
currently operating CLWRs to produce tritium would involve 
insignificant socioeconomic impacts.
Transportation
    There will be impacts associated with transporting irradiated 
TPBARs from the reactor sites to the Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF) 
at the Savannah River Site (SRS). There would be up to approximately 13 
shipments of TPBARs annually to SRS which would result in an annual 
human health risk, over the entire route of the shipments, of less than 
1 latent cancer fatality every 100,000 years. The impact on any one 
individual would be less than that. All the transportation impacts are 
negligible.
    No environmental commitments or mitigation were identified for the 
preferred alternative. A substantial radiological monitoring program 
for public exposure and all environmental media (air, water and land) 
is an established component of existing operations at the Watts Bar and 
Sequoyah Nuclear Plants. This existing program will identify any 
increases in radiological releases and impacts that may result from 
tritium production.

Other Considerations

TVA's Support of National Defense
    TVA's decision to produce the Nation's tritium on an ``at cost'' 
basis under an Economy Act agreement reflects TVA's continuing 
willingness to support the national defense. TVA's historic and 
contemporary defense roles are described above under TVA's National 
Defense Role. Both alternatives would further TVA's commitment to 
national defense by producing the requisite quantities of tritium.
Regulatory and Licensing Issues
    The Bellefonte alternatives would have to be licensed as a new 
nuclear power plant. The plant's initial NRC operating license would 
also permit tritium production. Since the process is likely to take 5 
years, the Bellefonte alternative has the potential to impact the 
project schedule but would not affect the national security because 
initial tritium production could begin with the Watts Bar reactor.
    For the alternatives using existing CLWRs, NRC would have to amend 
the operating licenses of the Watts Bar and Sequoyah reactors to permit 
tritium production. TVA expects that NRC would be in a position to act 
upon the amendment requests well in advance of the planned October 2003 
start of irradiation.

Environmentally Preferable Alternative

    The alternatives involving the completion and operation of one or 
both of the Bellefonte units would cause greater environmental impacts 
than the alternatives using existing operating reactors at Watts Bar 
and Sequoyah. This greater impact of alternatives using the Bellefonte 
reactors would result from their construction and operation as nuclear 
units which would be made possible by their concurrent use for tritium 
production. Based on these additional impacts that would be caused by 
completing and operating the Bellefonte units, TVA considers the use of 
the Watts Bar and Sequoyah reactors for tritium production as the 
environmentally preferable alternative.

    Dated: April 24, 2000.
John A. Scalice,
Chief Nuclear Officer and Executive Vice President.
[FR Doc. 00-11222 Filed 5-4-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 8120-08-U


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