Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
11/13/2015
The Electrorefining (ER) Project at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant is still in its infancy, but the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has already identified some safety-related concerns in conceptual design and planning documents.
In an Oct. 29 letter to National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank G. Klotz, DNFSB Chairwoman Joyce Connery said a staff review had raised a number of issues that need to be addressed before the design proceeds to more advanced phases.
“The conceptual design documents for (the project) have appropriately identified the structures, systems and components necessary to confine and control hazardous material,” Connery wrote to Klotz. “We believe, however, that the National Nuclear Security Administration has not fully analyzed some of these (structures, systems and components) to determine whether they can perform their credited safety functions.”
It’s important, she said, to deal with concerns at this early stage to ensure safety is properly integrated into the project’s design.
The staff report is attached to the letter to Klotz.
In their review of the Electrorefining Project plans, safety board staffers “identified several instances where the (project) relied on new and existing structures, systems and components that have not yet been shown to adequately meet their credited safety functions.” Specifically, they noted concerns with the seismic performance of the Building 9998 structure (which will house the Electrorefining Project), the building’s sprinkler systems, the project’s “confinement approach,” and the use of combustible glove box windows.
According to the DNFSB, the review team addressed some of these issues with project personnel at Y-12 and the team “plans to follow up on these concerns during preliminary design.”
The estimated cost range of the Electrorefining Project is between $58.6 million and $76.7 million. The project is tentatively scheduled to come online in 2021.
The DNFSB documents describe the ER as part of the overall Metal Purification Process Project at Y-12, which also includes the Direct Electrolytic Reduction and Uranium Trichloride projects. Collectively, they will reportedly replace the existing operations in the aged 9212 complex that process enriched uranium scrap and residues, as well as uranium oxides from the plant’s casting operations, for reuse in the stockpile. The project is designed to reduce the hazards associated with the recovery work as “currently performed.”
ER is to be located inside Building 9998, which is sandwiched amid a cluster of production facilities in Y-12’s high-security Protected Area. Building 9998 is consider part of the 9215 complex, which is adjacent to the 9212 production hub for highly enriched uranium processing. All of the plans are focused on vacating 9212 as soon as possible.
The DNFSB report indicated that some of Y-12 plans for the Electrorefining Project do not include analyses of Building 9998’s structure and systems. Rather, those analyses would be done later as part of the more comprehensive reviews of plans to extend the life of the 9215 complex.
In the Oct. 29, letter to Klotz, Connery asked the NNSA to submit a schedule to the board within the next 60 days, specifically addressing when those safety analyses will take place.
The defense board said Department of Energy Standard 1020 “indicates that the ER Project needs to either upgrade the existing structure to meet the criteria given for new facilities in DOE Standard 1020 or perform an analysis specific to the ER Project that shows whether or not such upgrades are needed.”
