[Carry_Okie]

The half-life of tritium is 12.3 years; however, tritium decays in to 3He2, which has a truly voracious appetite for neutrons and will generate fizzle yields in very minute quantities. A D-T initiator is going to need new tritium in less than one year.

Ye olde pin on the Holy Hand Grenade. Good call.

Question, how much apparatus and infrastructure does it take to do this kind of work? Pressure bottles, controls, flow meters... that sort of thing? How big and sophisticated does the shop have to be? Could you fit that into a container? Is there a way to stabilize the tritium for storage and transportation? Are there large power requirements?

[Poohbah]

Question, how much apparatus and infrastructure does it take to do this kind of work?

Tritium is generated in a nuclear reactor. The market price is $50,000 an ounce. Controls are TIGHT because it can be stolen.

Pressure bottles, controls, flow meters... that sort of thing? How big and sophisticated does the shop have to be? Could you fit that into a container?

You need a fuel-processing facility. Not exactly portable.

Is there a way to stabilize the tritium for storage and transportation?

Tritium is easily transported as lithium tritide (chemically identical to lithium hydride). Just keep it dry (it sucks moisture out of the air). However, it still decays--you can't stop that.

[eno_]

The simplest way to get around both the permissive action links (i.e. "trigger locks") and the initiator shelf-life issues is to scavenge the HEU from one or more bombs and build a gun-type bomb. One would HOPE that our intelligence could tell if such an effort were under way, but if it was done with government help in Iraq or Iran, such an effort could have been hidden.