H Canyon Spent Fuel Campaign Moves Into Next Phase
WC Monitor
4/17/2015
A long-term spent fuel downblending campaign at H-Canyon has moved into the next phase, resuming processing operations in portions of the canyon that had lain dormant for years, the Savannah River Site announced this week. In September, the site’s managing contractor, Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, began initial processing in an eight-to-10-year campaign to downblend highly enriched uranium from research reactor fuel stored at the site’s L-Basin, including about 1,000 bundles of Material Test Reactor fuel and up to 200 cores of High Flux Isotope Reactor fuel. That effort recently moved into the next phase, known as “head end,” to further purify the uranium. The process includes two more phases, known as the first cycle and second cycle. Each step requires a readiness assessment, which has been completed for the head end and is expected to be wrapped up this year for the next two cycles.
The material will ultimately go into Tennessee Valley Authority reactors as a continuation of a successful HEU downblend program that ran at H-Canyon from 2003 to 2011. “This campaign is important because it removes spent nuclear fuel from the state of South Carolina,” SRNS Director of EM Programs Mike Swain said in a statement this week. “It is also a nuclear non-proliferation campaign that provides a service to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and a return to the tax payer.”
This latest campaign began in September, right as SRNS wrapped up an effort to process 36 bundles of sodium reactor experimental fuel , which was deemed highly vulnerable in L-Basin and was prepared for disposal instead of downblended. The new campaign is expected to take about eight-to-10 years to downblend at a rate of four-to-10 batches per year, dependent on funding and the composition of the material, with each batch containing 20 bundles. While the material is currently being processed now, the downblending will not be completed until at least the end of Fiscal Year 2016.
Budget Cuts Could Impact Plans
However, site officials are currently facing potential impacts of proposed budget cuts to new processing missions at Savannah River’s H-Canyon facility. Instead of the new downblending mission, the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request states it will focus on “safe, secure storage” at L-Basin. The FY’16 proposed funding level for spent nuclear fuel stabilization and disposition at Savannah River, which covers some H-Canyon activities, is $34.4 million, down $8.7 million from current funding levels. The request also includes $234.6 million for nuclear materials stabilization and disposition, a cut of $12.2 million from current levels.
