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Office of Environmental Management
EMPDC

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Office of Environmental Management
Special Nuclear Materials


Management of Plutonium, Highly Enriched Uranium, and Uranium-233 (last updated July 2008)

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The Office of Environmental Management (EM), in coordination with the National Nuclear Security Administration, is responsible for disposition of about 12.8 metric tons (MT) of surplus, non-pit, weapons-usable plutonium-239. This surplus non-pit plutonium is currently stored at SRS, the Hanford Site, and the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories; and is being consolidated at SRS for disposition. EM’s preferred disposition strategy for this 12.8 MT of plutonium is to prepare 7.8 MT as feed for the Department’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (under construction at SRS) and the remaining 5.0 MT of plutonium would be dispositioned in H-Canyon facilities at SRS. The final decision on this disposition strategy is subject to completion of the NEPA process (a Supplemental EIS is currently ongoing.)

EM is also responsible for disposition of about 21 MT of surplus highly enriched uranium (HEU). Approximately 13.5 MT of this surplus HEU is contained in DOE’s current inventory of aluminum-clad SNF stored at SRS and INL and in projected future receipts of foreign and domestic research reactor aluminum-clad SNF. Most of the remaining approximately 7.5 MT of surplus HEU is managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). This surplus NNSA HEU is currently or was stored at the Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, at Bechtel Bettis in Idaho, and at the Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories; some of this material has recently been shipped to SRS. EM also has a very small amount of this 7.5 MT of surplus HEU currently stored at SRS and at Idaho that requires safe storage, pending disposition. The current planned and proposed disposition path for the total 21 MT of HEU is to process it in the H-Canyon facilities at SRS, recover the HEU, blend it down to a low enrichment, then transfer the low enriched uranium solution to an end user such as the Tennessee Valley Authority for use in fabricating fuel for its commercial nuclear reactors. Disposition of this HEU is part of the Enriched Uranium (EU) Disposition Project for which the Mission Need and continued operations of H-Canyon as the preferred alternative were both approved by the Deputy Secretary in August 2006. Disposition of the NNSA surplus HEU material by EM enables NNSA to avoid expensive security upgrades and continued storage of the material, and provides the only known disposition path for some of the material.

EM is responsible for surplus uranium-233 at various sites; the largest quantities are currently at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and until recently at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). At the beginning of Fiscal Year 2006, EM became responsible for disposition of over 1000 containers (~ 450 kg) of surplus uranium-233 stored in Building 3019 at the ORNL. This material will be downblended with depleted uranium to remove safeguards and criticality concerns and the downblended material will be disposed. The Uranium-233 Stabilization and Building 3019 Complex Shutdown project will modify Building 3019 to downblend the material. An Environmental Assessment for the project was issued in March 2007. Until recently, INL was storing 40 items from the Light Water Breeder Reactor which contained uranium-233. These items were recently disposed as low-level waste. EM is working to determine disposition paths for other small quantities of uranium-233 at various sites and laboratories which can be direct disposed.


Last Updated 3/24/2009
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