The Nation - News from Feb. 14, 1989

The Energy Department said it has no plans to stop selling tritium to private customers despite what it calls an approaching shortage of the radioactive gas, which is used in manufacturing most U.S. nuclear weapons. The nation’s only maker of the gas, the Savannah River reactor complex near Aiken, S.C., was shut down last spring for safety-related reasons. Phil Keif, a department spokesman, said officials decided to continue the tritium sales since the amounts involved are “a small piece” of total supplies, and since the government expects at least one of the three Savannah River reactors to be restarted by year’s end. Keif said the government expects to sell about 230 grams of tritium in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. At the current sale prices of about $28,000 per gram, this year’s sales would be worth about $6.4 million. Tritium is used commercially for a variety of research and medical purposes and for making self-luminous lights, signs, dials, watches and gun sights.