Tritium on ice: the dangerous new alliance of nuclear weapons and nuclear power

In December 1998, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced that the United States planned to begin producing tritium for its nuclear weapons in commercial nuclear power plants.

This decision overturned a fifty-year policy of keeping civilian and military nuclear production processes separate.

Tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, is needed to turn A-bombs into H-bombs, and the commercial nuclear power plants that are to be modified to produce tritium are called ice condensers.;This book provides an insider's perspective on how Richardson's decision came about, and why it is dangerous.

Tritium on Ice is part expose, part history, part science for the lay reader, and part political science.

Bergeron's discussion of how the issues of nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear reactor safety have become intertwined illuminates larger issues about how the federal government does or does not manage technology in the interests of its citizens and calls into question the integrity of government-funded safety assessments in a deregulated economy.