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