Kenneth Fletcher
WC Monitor
10/17/2014
With no time frame yet as to when uranium-233 from Oak Ridge may be sent to the Nevada National Security Site for disposal, the Department of Energy still has not submitted a Congressionally-mandated analysis that was due in April on options for the material. Concerns from Nevada officials led DOE last year to suspend indefinitely plans to ship a controversial batch of uranium-233 stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Meanwhile, expenses for keeping the material in its own high security area at ORNL costs DOE about $2.6 million per month. Some Congressional staff want DOE to consider other options, such as potentially consolidating the material within a secure area in Oak Ridge’s Y-12 National Security Complex. “We are looking for those kinds of options and that kind of analysis from the Department,” a Congressional aide told WC Monitor. “We are still keenly interested in getting that study and looking at those costs and weighing that against all the other factors that need to be taken into consideration.”
Lawmakers requested the analysis of options for the material in the Fiscal Year 2014 omnibus spending bill approved in January, which required within 90 days a lifecycle cost estimate of the program supporting removal of all uranium-233 by 2019 and an analysis of the cost and schedule implications if the material is not disposed of at NNSS. So far DOE has not provided that study and has given no sign as to when it will be made available.
No Final Decision On Whether Material Goes to Nevada
Nevada and DOE set up a working group in late 2013 after DOE’s plans to dispose of the material at NNSS were met with significant political opposition from state officials and questions from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). However, as of last month “no final decisions” had been made on whether the material would be disposed of in Nevada, Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Director Leo Drozdoff said in September. Meanwhile, the Department has said that it has not pursued any other options for the material, though Nevada and DOE have no schedule for reaching a resolution as the costs add up for DOE. DOE this week did not respond to request for comment this week on the status of the material.
In question are 403 canisters of Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Project (CEUSP) material in DOE’s inventory of uranium-233 being stored at ORNL’s Building 3019. Due to high costs, in 2011 DOE switched its plans from downblending the entire store of uranium-233 at ORNL for disposition to an approach of shipping about half the stockpile to the Nevada National Security Site for direct disposal, including the CEUSP material. DOE had originally planned to complete the first CEUSP shipments in 2013.
