Using commercial light water reactors to meet the nation's demand for tritium will depend on the technical support of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland.

Though tritium needed for nuclear weapons will not be produced at Hanford, the Tri-Cities still will be the part of the nation's tritium mission as the Richland laboratory continues a 10-year, $167.5 million project to help develop a commercial light water reactor program.

The laboratory will design the first load of tritium-producing rods scheduled to be placed in the reactors in 2003. Irradiation must begin in 2003 to have rods available for tritium gas extraction by 2005.

It will have a lead role in the transition from testing the technology in the reactors on a small scale to going to large-scale production. It also will play a main role in the transfer of technology to the commercial manufacturer the Department of Energy will select to make the rods in production-level quantities.

The Richland laboratory originally looked at producing tritium in a commercial light water reactor as part of a DOE program from 1988 to 1992. It then was picked to work on the DOE's Commercial Light Water Reactor Program started in 1996.

As part of that program, the laboratory designed a prototype and built 32 tritium-producing rods for irradiation in the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Nuclear Plant 1. They were placed in the plant in October 1997 and will remain there during its 18-month fuel cycle.

The rods absorb neutrons in the reactor similar to conventional control rods and also produce tritium that is captured in the rod.

When the rods are removed from the Watts Bar plant, they will be transferred to Argonne National Laboratory-West for evaluation and testing. Several of the rods then will be cut into 4-foot lengths and sent to the Richland lab for analysis and confirmation that they performed as expected.

Information will be used to provide technical support as the TVA applies for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to operate the first tritium production core.