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Tritium Extraction Facility

gets ready for big year

he SRS Tritium Extraction Facility (TEF), which provides the Then, in the TEF, the tritium is extracted from the rods, processed,
hydrogen isotope needed for the nation’s nuclear deterrent, transferred to H Area New Manufacturing (HANM) and loaded into
has been receiving shipments of spent fuel from a Tennessee reservoirs for shipment to the military.
Valley Authority (TVA) reactor every year since starting up operations in For its first 10 years of operation, TEF was only required to conduct a
2007. The first shipment of 2021, however, had special significance. single extraction each year to meet Department of Defense demands.
That one kicked off a year that will see TEF personnel shatter their Then in Fiscal Year 2017, the facility’s employees conducted three
operational record. Between September 2020 and August 2021, they extractions for the first time.
will perform six extraction operations to extract tritium from the rods– Actions to be ready for the increased workload began with the
more than the facility has ever performed in a single 12-month period, preparations for that 2017 milestone, including the start of hiring,
marking the beginning of a multi-year increase that will see operations training and qualifying additional operators and other facility
grow to eight extractions per year in 2026. personnel. Today, TEF has reached full operational staffing in
Tritium is the radioactive isotope of hydrogen needed for modern readiness for the increasing number of extractions.
nuclear weapons. “It’s absolutely vital for our nuclear deterrent,” TEF Other preparations included bringing a second furnace online in
Facility Manager Joey Huckabee explained. “Without tritium, there the facility in 2019 to enhance operational flexibility and capability
wouldn’t be a nuclear stockpile, but it has a relatively short half-life, for the multiple annual extractions. In late 2020, SRNS also began
so it has to be replenished on an on-going basis. The Savannah River operating a new diffuser/stacking system for TEF’s waste gases. The
Site is the only place in the country that provides the tritium used in new system allows TEF to handle its own gases, rather than having
the nation’s stockpile.” them processed along with other waste gases at HANM, increasing
SRS has been providing the nation’s tritium since the 1950s, originally capacity and decreasing waste gas.
generated in the Site’s nuclear reactors. In the contemporary In addition to the new tritium extracted at TEF, tritium is also supplied
process, rods called Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods are by recycling and purifying the gas from reservoirs returned from the
irradiated in reactors operated by TVA, then transported to SRS. stockpile, another operation performed only at SRS.

TEF personnel receive rods shipped from the Tennessee Valley Authority in preparation for extracting tritium for the nation’s nuclear deterrent.