Office of Defense Programs

Nuclear weapons require the periodic replacement of tritium, a radioactive gas that decays at approximately 5.5 percent per year. Currently no tritium-supply facility exists in the US, and due to the decay, the tritium inventory will fall below the required reserve level in 2011. To decide how to fill this projected gap, the US Department of Energy assessed 10 tritium-supply alternatives, including several types of new reactors, an accelerator, and the use of commercial reactors. The DOE compared the alternatives with respect to three objectives: production assurance, cost, and environmental impacts. We combined a dynamic production-simulation model and probabilistic assessments of schedule, production capacity, and availability risks to predict the production behavior of each alternative over 40 years. We also assessed the cost and environmental risks. The secretary of energy decided to pursue both the commercial-reactor and accelerator alternatives, based, in part, on the results of this analysis.

The US Department of Energy Offices of Defense Programs and Civilian Radioactive Waste Management jointly sponsored a program to evaluate elastomeric O-ring seal materials for radioactive material shipping containers. The report presents the results of low- and high-temperature tests conducted on 27 common elastomeric compounds.

New technology transfer mechanisms used jointly to develop technology meet both agency needs and partner objectives. Partnerships provide mutual benefits, reduce costs, shorten development time, and reduce risks. The US Department of Energy's experience making the transition from technology transfer to technology partnerships is addressed from policy, process, and performance perspectives. Despite meeting or exceeding performance goals, and in spite of a documented high–level of partner/customer satisfaction, congressional actions in the 1996 budget have forced the department to change its organizational structure for the department–wide technology transfer functions.

ABSTRACT The Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Defense Programs (DP) is responsible for the research, development, and testing of defense related applications of nuclear energy and the operation and maintenance of facilities required to support these efforts along with any associated production activities. DP had been the landlord for hundreds of individual facilities located at principally eight sites around the United States, representing about 50 percent of DOE's capital assets. In 1994, DP established a CFC HVAC/Chiller Retrofit Program to facilitate the replacement and retrofit of chillers and to promote compliance with CFC environmental and energy conservation laws and regulations. Through comprehensive inventories, DP found that it owns approximately 200 old and inefficient CFC chillers, which if replaced, would greatly reduce electricity consumption and costs, and reduce exposure to potential non-compliance with refrigerant leak regulations. The major domestic chiller manufacturers indicate that they are producing at or near full capacity to meet the demands of both government and private sector customers. With estimates of approximately 63,000 chillers nationally operating with CFCs, DP is concerned that market pressure will raise prices and that shop space for future orders will become increasingly scarce. Saving energy and money while protecting the stratospheric ozone layer is the goal of the DP CFC HVAC/Chiller Retrofit Program. While working to minimize the release of ozone-depleting substances to the environment and moving to convert existing equipment to use alternative refrigerants, the installation of more efficient chillers also promotes environmental stewardship in that reduced energy consumption translates into reduced emissions of noxious gases from the generation of electricity.