PRIA Logo™

The hidden hand

The Tennessee reactor fueling nuclear weapons

Watts Bar, a commercial power plant, is secretly the US government's sole production facility for tritium, the radioactive fuel essential to thermonuclear warheads.

The number

5.5% annual tritium decay rate

Lithium-6 rods irradiated at Watts Bar generate tritium via neutron capture—the only domestic source of this weapons material. Any disruption to the global lithium supply chain, from Chilean nationalization to Chinese processing restrictions, threatens US nuclear stockpile replenishment cycles.

Source: Watts Bar Lone Source of a Nuclear Weapon Material; TVA Increasing Production · WVLT TV (Knoxville local news) · May 23, 2022

Jump into the supply map

Where this story connects

The supplymap lets you trace the goods, inputs, and companies this story touches — see the full dependency chain, country shares, and historical incidents.

Essential goods

Tap to see the full chain

More on Supply input · Lithium Carbonate

Related stories