Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
9/25/2015
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said this week that its repatriation of about 1 kilogram of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from a Jamaican research reactor to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site in South Carolina has made the Caribbean HEU-free.
The United States supplied Canada with HEU material for fuel fabrication for the Safe Low-Power Kritical Experiment (SLOWPOKE) reactor at the University of West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica following a 1984 agreement between the U.S., Jamaica, Canada, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Through a joint effort between the three countries, the reactor – the only one in the Caribbean – was converted to run on low-enriched uranium fuel while its HEU core was returned to the U.S. for storage at the Savannah River Site, the announcement says.
The fuel is “pending final disposition, which often involves blending to low enrichment and distribution to the Tennessee Valley Authority for generation of electricity,” according to the NNSA. The announcement says the SLOWPOKE reactor is used to determine “which chemical elements comprise a material by bombarding the material with neutrons,” which “has informed environmental, agricultural and health related studies” and increased “food safety, food security and water and air quality in Jamaica.”
