The Department of Energy’s $7.6-billion cleanup office will soon move to tear down a land-based reactor in Idaho considered integral to development of the United States first nuclear-powered submarine in the 1950s.
The DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a release Tuesday it assumed responsibility for deactivation and demolition of the Submarine 1st Generation Westinghouse (S1W) prototype facility from DOE’s Office of Naval Reactors on Jan. 27.
Located west of Idaho Falls at the Naval Reactors Facility (NRF) in the Arco Desert, the S1W led to development of the nuclear-power USS Nautilus. Launched in 1954,the Nautilus was capable of staying underwater much longer than diesel-electric subs, DOE said. The S1W prototype facility, shut down in 1989, was also used over the years to train naval officers for propulsion of nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.
The DOE called the project a key part of remediation of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which is now overseen by a Jacobs-led joint venture.
Workers begin taking down certain support buildings this month and full-fledged deactivation and demolition should start in fiscal 2023, which starts Oct. 1. An analysis to evaluate alternatives for decommissioning the prototype facility will be released for public comment, DOE said.
“This project is the first in a partnership between EM and Naval Reactors at the INL Site,” said Connie Flohr, manager of the Idaho Cleanup Project for Environmental Management, in the press release.
“Naval Reactors entered into this agreement because DOE-EM has established expertise in large-scale D&D across the DOE laboratory complex,” said Mike Huth, manager of the Naval Reactors Idaho Branch Office. “We look forward to working with EM in the years to come.”
