Kenneth Fletcher
NS&D Monitor
3/28/2014

Planned shipments of liquid highly enriched uranium from Canada to the Savannah River Site for processing have been delayed again, and now appear to be slated for September 2015. Officials said in late 2012 that the processing of the material could start in 2013 and end in 2016, but officials said in early 2013 that budget uncertainty pushed that schedule back to Fiscal Year 2014 at the earliest. The newest schedule calls for preparations for receipt and processing of the material to continue in FY’14, while receipt of the material is set for September 2015, according to details in the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request released last week. The DOE Savannah River Operations Office referred requests for comment to the National Nuclear Security Administration, which did not respond this week.        

The project would involve the return of U.S. origin HEU from the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, which would pay DOE for the processing. Officials said in 2012 that the Department would receive about $60 million for the processing . The project under consideration would involve about 23,000 liters of material resulting from Molybdenum-99 production, which would be down-blended to low enriched uranium at H-Canyon for use as fuel in commercial nuclear power plants.