Details of Secretive Work at Westinghouse Commercial Nuclear Fuel Plant in Columbia, SC , Key to All U.S. Nuclear Weapons held by the Department of Defense, Revealed in SRS Watch Report Released Today
The Report Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed, Details Use of a Commercial-Military “Dual-Use Facility” for Nuclear Weapons-Related Work, Producing an Unknown Amount of Waste and Undermining International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Norms
Columbia, SC – A commercial facility near Columbia, South Carolina that produces uranium fuel for nuclear power plants is also involved in secretive activities key to U.S. nuclear weapons, according to a report released today. The dual-use nature of the facility violates international nuclear proliferation norms that claims to keep separate the commercial and military nuclear activities, according to the report.
The report provides previously unknown information about the nuclear-weapons-related activities at the commercial facility and indicates that waste streams from the activities are unknown. The public has been kept in the dark about the secretive operations and has never had an opportunity to comment about waste production or any other aspect of the nuclear-weapons-related operations.
The report entitled Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed – released by the public interest group Savannah River Site Watch, based in Columbia, SC – gives an account of how the little-known Westinghouse commercial facility is actually a “dual-use facility” that fabricates special assemblies used to produce radioactive tritium gas. Tritium is a non-fissile nuclear weapons material supplied by the U.S. Department of Energy to the Department of Defense for use in all U.S. nuclear weapons to boost their explosive power.
Full news release linked here: SRS Watch news report tritium rods Westinghouse Nov 19 2021
Update December 6, 2021:
SRS Watch report on role of the Westinghouse military-commercial dual-use facility in nuclear weapons:
Crossing the Line: South Carolina Nuclear Weapons Secrets Exposed – filed by the NRC into the EIS record:
https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML21323A187
Aerial photo of Westinghouse site ©High Flyer
UPDATE – March 3, 2022 – Things get even fishier….
In a “Request for Information to Westinghouse, to be used in preparation of the EIS on the license extension for the facility, the NRC asked questions about hazardous waste from TPBAR fabrication. Westinghouse responded and admitted such waste is produced and is passed from the military part of the Westinghouse facility to the civilian side of the facility. So, why did the NRC initially claim that the TPBAR issue is “outside the scope” of the EIS? Looks like the NRC was in league with Westinghouse in trying to hide that TPBAR operations produce waste and that the facility is, in fact, a civilian-military dual use facility.
NRC RAI (made public on March 2, 2022): https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2204/ML22049A302.pdf
Westinghouse response, Feb. 18, 2022 (made public on March 2, 2022): https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2205/ML22052A012.pdf