Word: tritium
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...University of Washington, two graduate students reported finding tritium, another fusion waste product, in their version of the experiment. A scientist in Moscow asserted that he too had found evidence of cold fusion. And M.I.T. filed for patents based on a researcher's theoretical model of how fusion in a jar might work...
...primary purpose of the $3.6 billion nuclear plant that the U.S. Department of Energy wants to build in Idaho Falls, Idaho, is to help replenish America's dwindling supply of tritium, a vital component in atom bombs. But if approved by Congress, the Idaho facility could play an even more important role in the civilian use of nuclear power. For it is based on what proponents claim is a fail-safe technology, one that virtually eliminates the danger of a meltdown...
Energy Secretary John Herrington readily admits that safety fell by the wayside in the past as "things got too cozy" with plant contractors. Despite the growing public outcry, however, he plans to restart one tritium-producing reactor at Savannah River in December and another early next year. Herrington, a lawyer and Reagan appointee, has taken commendable steps to infuse a safety- conscious attitude at the weapons facilities. But he has failed to heed complaints from environmentalists and Congressmen who believe the plant should remain closed until DOE files an environmental-impact statement on the 300- sq.-mi. facility...
...extended shutdown could cause real trouble. If tritium production at Savannah River is not resumed within a year or so, says Assistant to the Secretary of Defense Robert Barker, "we will begin to disarm unilaterally." Even as such alarms are being sounded, however, there is little sense of urgency at the White House about either the danger to national security or the threat to people living in potentially irradiated environments near the DOE facilities. "The Energy Department is managing the situation very well," says B. Jay Cooper, a White House spokesman. Intent on keeping the issue from being politicized...
...inflated the Savannah River troubles so that Westinghouse Electric, which is scheduled to take over the plant's operation from Du Pont on April 1, will look better. Heckert also contends that DOE is promoting the furor to gain public support and congressional funding for a new tritium-producing reactor at the huge installation. It would cost at least $6 billion and take more than six years to build. "Despite all the hullabaloo," Heckert says of his company's operation of the plant, "nobody was ever injured or killed...