The Double Life of Tritium: 
 Ambivalence in the U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure

With Taylor Loy, Postdoctoral Assocoate, Virginia Tech

and Sonja Schmid, Professor, 
Department of Science, Technology, and Society, Virginia Tech

NSEG Colloquium, 27 September 2024, 10:00 - 11:00 am

Our research analyzes the U.S. practice of producing tritium for nuclear weapons in civilian power reactors. Over the last 25 years, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the Dept. of Energy (DOE) have been collaborating in the irradiation of Tritium Producing Burnable Absorber Rods (TPBARs) to produce tritium during the normal fuel cycle at the Watts Bar nuclear power plant. In this presentation, we reconstruct the design, manufacturing, and chain of custody of these TPBARs and discuss the implications of these “irradiation services”: both for the institutional infrastructure of TVA, and for America's international treaty obligations. For our research, we reviewed government documents, including those on the “national production reactor” (NPR) program, and conducted interviews with activists, industry representatives, and former government staff members.

Taylor Loy is a Postdoctoral Associate at Virginia Tech. He received his PhD in Science, Technology, & Society (STS) at Virginia Tech, with a dissertation focused on the history of tritium. Before that, Dr. Loy worked at the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant for over six years, rising from Assistant Unit Operator to Senior Reactor Operator and Lead Operations Instructor. His most recent publication, a policy brief with New America’s Nuclear Futures Working Group entitled, “Speculating on Tritium Futures: Why Defense Material Should Fuel Fusion Innovation” (2023), considers opportunities for harmonizing global decarbonization and nonproliferation goals along the material axis of tritium.

Sonja Schmid is a Professor in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society (STS). Her research is located at the interface of national energy policies, technological choices, and nonproliferation concerns. She has written on the history of the Soviet nuclear industry, nuclear technology in Central and East Europe, and nuclear emergency response. At Virginia Tech, she teaches courses in social studies of technology, science and technology policy, socio-cultural studies of risk, and energy policy. Together with the nuclear engineering program and the policy school, she developed the interdisciplinary graduate certificate, “Nuclear Science, Technology, and Policy,” which aims at providing problem-based learning to develop high-quality research with policy impact. Professor Schmid currently serves on the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee.

Together, Loy and Schmid have recently started a new project, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, that focuses on the history and policy implications of the civilian/military boundary in nuclear infrastructures.