Selling tritium to the government is key to the plan. Such transactions would produce bridge financing until medical isotopes start producing sufficient income. Tritium is a short-lived isotope of hydrogen needed to make nuclear bombs work properly. But there are other proposals to produce tritium. The other would be to pay commercial nuclear power plants to collect tritium in their reactors.
Any scenario is a long shot, even supporters agree.
He's the region's point man in Washington, D.C., for nuclear issues. We don't have the money. Producing tritium is a matter of national security, and the government would never allow a private company to make decisions about manufacturing tritium, Volpentest said. Plus, Russia and the United States could soon agree on a new nuclear disarmament treaty. But a reduced tritium requirement would make FFTF an even more viable option, Farabee said.