|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Special Nuclear Materials
|
Management of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium
The Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for the safe storage
and ultimate disposition of surplus, non-pit, weapons-usable plutonium-239
and some surplus highly enriched uranium (HEU) (not contained in SNF). This
material was originally planned to be disposed of using a
proposed new Plutonium Immobilization Plant that would have immobilized the
plutonium in ceramic pucks, but construction of that facility was cancelled
by the Department in April 2002. EM’s surplus plutonium is currently stored
at SRS, the Hanford Site, and the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories. In order to provide a disposition path for this material, the
Deputy Secretary of Energy approved the Mission Need for a new Plutonium
Disposition Project at SRS in September 2005. Subsequently, in August 2006
the Deputy Secretary approved the selection of vitrification as the preferred
technology alternative for this new capability, and a Conceptual Design for
this project is currently being prepared. In the vitrification technology,
the surplus plutonium would be melted with glass, poured into small containers,
and then inserted into Defense Waste Processing Facility canisters that are
subsequently filled with high level waste glass. This new disposition
capability, together with the Department’s Mixed-Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication
Facility planned to be constructed at SRS and the SRS H-Canyon facilities,
provide a disposition path for all of DOE’s surplus plutonium. The H-Canyon
facilities will be used to disposition a small portion of the 13 metric tons
of surplus, non-pit plutonium that is not suitable for either vitrification or
for use in MOX fuel.
EM also has some surplus highly enriched uranium (HEU) (not contained in SNF)
currently stored at SRS, with a much smaller amount at Idaho, that requires
safe storage, pending disposition. The current planned disposition path for
this material is to process it in the H-Canyon facilities, blend it down to a
low enrichment, then transfer the low enriched uranium solution to 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. Approximately 7.5 metric tons of surplus HEU
materials managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are
also planned to be similarly dispositioned by processing in EM’s H-Canyon
facilities. This surplus NNSA HEU is currently 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. Disposition of this material by
EM enables NNSA to avoid expensive security upgrades and continued storage of
the material, and provides the only known disposition path for NNSA’s HEU.
The EU Disposition Project also includes disposition of approximately 19,500
aluminum-clad SNF and target assemblies.
|
|
|
|
|
