To determine the extent to which NNSA has been able to overcome technical challenges producing tritium, we visited and interviewed officials from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where the TPBARs were designed and where work continues to overcome technical problems, and WesDyne Corporation, NNSA’s contractor that fabricates the TPBARs. In addition, we reviewed TVA tritium management plans and reports. We examined amendments to TVA’s operating license for the Watts Bar plant issued by NRC that approved TVA’s irradiation of TPBARs. We also reviewed relevant NRC regulations and documents related to TVA tritium activities and interviewed officials from NRC and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent agency established in 1988 to oversee the safety of DOE’s nuclear facilities. We also visited and interviewed officials at TVA’s Watts Bar 1 nuclear power plant, where TPBARs are irradiated, and SRS, where the TPBARs are processed to extract tritium for nuclear warheads. To determine the extent to which NNSA is able to meet current and future nuclear weapons stockpile requirements for tritium, we reviewed NNSA’s tritium production plans as well as requirements documents prepared by DOD and NNSA, such as the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. We also reviewed NNSA’s strategic plans for the Tritium Readiness Program, including program execution and implementation plans; past and planned schedules for completing TPBAR fabrication, transportation, irradiation, and extraction activities; and the program’s risk management plan. We also interviewed NNSA officials responsible for developing these plans. Finally, to assess the management of NNSA’s Tritium Readiness Program, we reviewed contracts between NNSA and WesDyne, as well as budget and expenditure data obtained from DOE’s Office of Programming, Planning, Budget, and Evaluation. In addition, we examined past expenditure projections, contracts and subcontracts for TPBAR fabrication, and NNSA’s planned and actual work schedules for conducting and completing TPBAR fabrication, transportation, irradiation, and extraction activities. We determined that the data used was sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. We conducted this performance audit from October 2009 to September 2010 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that exists naturally in the environment, but in amounts that are too small for practical recovery. Tritium is produced artificially when lithium-6 is bombarded with neutrons (particles within an atom that have no electrical charge) in the core of a nuclear reactor. When present in the center of a nuclear weapon at the instant of its detonation, tritium undergoes nuclear fusion, releasing enormous amounts of energy and significantly increasing the explosive power, or “yield,” of the weapon. From 1954 until 1988, the United States produced the majority of its tritium using nuclear reactors at SRS. When the last of SRS’s reactors ceased operations for safety reasons in 1988, the United States lost its capability to produce tritium for the nuclear weapons stockpile. In August 1993 we reported that significant reductions in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile as a result of, among other things, arms reduction treaties signed with Russia would result in sufficient supplies of tritium through 2012 without the need to produce any new tritium. We reported, however, that after that date a new source of tritium would be required for the stockpile. To re-establish the nation’s tritium production capability, NNSA’s predecessor—DOE’s Office of Defense Programs—studied two different approaches to make tritium. The first involved building an accelerator to produce tritium. This device would accelerate protons (particles within an atom that have a positive electrical charge) to nearly the speed of light. The protons would be crashed into tungsten, releasing neutrons through a process called spallation, which can be used to change helium into tritium. After extensive research and development of accelerator-based tritium production technology, DOE abandoned this approach. The second approach DOE pursued was to produce tritium using commercial nuclear power reactors. In such a reactor, components called burnable absorber rods are used to control the reactivity of the core in a nuclear reactor during power production. With the support of Sandia National Laboratories and the Idaho National Laboratory using Idaho’s Advanced Test Reactor, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory designed a new rod—called a TPBAR—that could be substituted for standard burnable absorber rods in the reactor. As the commercial reactor produces power, the TPBARs are irradiated, controlling the nuclear reaction while simultaneously producing tritium. The tritium produced within the TPBAR is stored within the rod by a nickel-plated component known as a “getter.” (See figure 1.) In 1999 DOE entered into an interagency agreement with TVA to irradiate TPBARs in TVA’s Watts Bar and Sequoyah nuclear power reactors. DOE, and subsequently NNSA after its establishment in 2000, pays TVA an irradiation fee as well as reimburses TVA for any additional costs associated with TPBAR irradiation. The agreement anticipates that TVA would be paid approximately $1.5 billion for its costs over the agreement’s 35-year term. To allow it to irradiate TPBARs in the reactor, TVA applied to NRC for an amendment to its operating license. After completing a safety evaluation, NRC issued a license amendment in 1997 that allowed TVA to irradiate 32 TPBARs for testing purposes and, following successful testing, issued another amendment in 2002 that allowed TVA to load up to 2,304 TPBARs in the Watts Bar 1 reactor per reactor operating cycle. In 2003 the first TPBARs intended to produce tritium for the nuclear weapons stockpile were loaded into the Watts Bar 1 reactor and were removed approximately 18 months later as part of the reactor’s normal refueling cycle. To date, only the Watts Bar 1 reactor has been used to irradiate TPBARs. The first TPBARs were fabricated by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which designed the rods as well as the tritium production processes associated with them. In 2000 NNSA contracted with WesDyne International—a subsidiary of Westinghouse—to fabricate TPBARs. WesDyne procures and maintains an inventory of TPBAR components and assembles TPBARs at a Westinghouse facility in Columbia, South Carolina. This facility also supplies nuclear fuel for TVA’s Watts Bar 1 reactor. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory continues to serve as the TPBAR design agent, developing design changes as needed and supporting WesDyne’s fabrication of TPBARs. The laboratory also maintains a backup capability to produce TPBARs in the event WesDyne becomes unable or unwilling to fulfill its contract with NNSA. Once fabricated, the TPBARs are shipped to Watts Bar where they are loaded into the reactor core during a normal refueling outage. After being irradiated for approximately 18 months, the TPBARs are removed from the reactor core and, after cooling for several months, are transported to SRS. The TPBARs, which are now highly radioactive because of the time spent inside the reactor, are processed at a specialized new Tritium Extraction Facility at SRS. This facility, which began operations in 2007 at a cost of nearly $500 million, cuts the tops off the TPBARs and processes them to extract tritium. Waste from the extraction process, such as scrap pieces from cut-apart TPBARs, is permanently disposed of as low-level radioactive waste. The steps involved in NNSA’s tritium production enterprise are illustrated in figure 2. Tritium extracted from TPBARs is then loaded into specially designed reservoirs that are shipped to DOD for installation into nuclear weapons. Tritium reservoirs are periodically removed from each weapon in the stockpile as part of their routine maintenance and then shipped to SRS, where any remaining tritium that has not decayed is recovered. The reservoirs are then refilled with tritium and returned to DOD. Despite the fact that the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has redesigned several components within the TPBARs to reduce the amount of tritium permeating into the reactor coolant at the Watts Bar 1 reactor, tritium is still leaking from the TPBARs at higher-than-expected rates. As a result, significantly fewer TPBARs than planned are being irradiated in the reactor, which has considerably reduced the amount of tritium NNSA is producing. NNSA and TVA officials told us that they are developing plans to increase the number of TPBARs being irradiated and the number of reactors participating in tritium production, as well as plans to modify the reactors to better manage tritium releases to the environment. However, to date, these plans have not been actively coordinated with NRC, which ultimately must approve any modifications to reactor operations. NNSA has been unable to solve the technical challenges it has been experiencing producing tritium. Specifically, tritium is permeating from the TPBARs at higher-than-expected rates into the water used to cool the reactor core at TVA’s Watts Bar 1 nuclear plant rather than being captured in the TPBARs as designed.