The Nation - News from Feb. 23, 1989

The Energy Department cannot complete a major analysis of its three idled tritium production reactors at Savannah River, S.C., before the first one is ready to be restarted, a department adviser told Congress. It is “probably going to take a lot longer than a year” to prove that the reactors can safely withstand the most serious plausible accident they are expected to face, John Ahearne, chairman of the department’s Advisory Committee on Nuclear Facilities Safeguards, told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.