Fluor-B&W Past Halfway Point of Removing Cells from Former Enrichment Process Building
Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
5/9/2014
Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, LLC, has reached a significant milestone in cleaning out one of the three former enrichment process buildings at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, but funding challenges currently appear set to prevent FBP from reaching a goal to have the building ready for demolition by the time its initial contract ends in March 2016. To date, workers have removed process equipment out of slightly more than half (103) of the 200 cells within Building X-326, according to FBP Site Project Director Dennis Carr. However, Carr told WC Monitor this week that the Department of Energy’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request for the Portsmouth site is insufficient for FBP to be able to have X-326 ready for demolition by March 2016, as planned.“It’s going to come down to what kind of funding we get next year,” he said.
D&D work at Portsmouth is funded in two ways—annual Congressional appropriations and through DOE providing FBP with stocks of surplus uranium, which the contractor then sells and uses the proceeds for work. With a steady decrease in uranium prices, though, the barter arrangement has resulted in less funding for FBP than the contractor had anticipated. In its FY 2015 request, DOE sought $160 million for D&D work at Portsmouth, an increase of approximately $22 million from current funding levels. But while DOE is seeking an increase in funds next year, as a result of the current state of uranium prices, the request will not allow FBP to meet its goal for getting X-326 demolition-ready, Carr said. “The current funding request, given the current state of the barter [program], will not get us there,” he said.
Carr went on to say, “This is not a reflection on the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy put in the request what they thought they needed. What has transpired has been a significant reduction in the spot market price for uranium. We have seen a major deterioration in the price. We went in planning the year at a $95 a kilogram. If you pulled up the market analysis right now, you’d be at $85 a kilogram. So we’ve lost a significant funding potential coming from the barter as the result of the market.”
Hard to Find Addl. Efficiencies
Carr praised FBP’s workforce for their performance in cleaning out Building X-326, noting that crews are set to remove equipment from a total of 75 cells this fiscal year, up from the 53 completed last year. “I think they’ve done an excellent job of improving their efficiency —almost a 50 percent increase in the amount of cells that they’ve done with the same group at the same cost is pretty remarkable,” he said, adding that the workforce’s safety performance has been “phenomenal” this year.
However, Carr appeared to be skeptical that FBP could realize further efficiency improvements to offset the funding challenges expected next year. “I’d say these guys, they’re just a learning system, like everything else they’re getting more and more efficient, but we’ve already factored in that improvement opportunity,” he said. “We can always eke out a little bit of efficiency. There’s always an opportunity—I’m not standing here saying I understand every opportunity, if there’s somebody out there that can identify ways of doing things cheaper and better, I’m all for it. But given our current funding profile with the barter dollars, that would have to be a significant efficiency improvement. I don’t know what that is at this moment,” he said.
Deactivation Progress or On-Site Disposal Cell?
The funding challenges Portsmouth faces next year could disrupt making progress on the construction of a long-planned on-site disposal cell, which is seen as necessary to perform the D&D of the Portsmouth plant in a cost-effective manner. DOE and FBP were set late this week to begin discussions on how to prioritize work next year given the anticipated level of funding, Carr said. “We’ve seen this barter price go down and with a continued forecast of continued degradation of the spot market price, we’re now facing into what’s the reality of next year. So everything is on the table. We know we can’t continue on, given that funding scenario, with a 24-hour-a day, four shift operation doing cut and cap work, but the question is where do we focus the available money we have? Do we continue with on-site disposal? Do we continue with cut-and-cap?” he said. “We’d be crazy to build a cell if we aren’t in line to have something to put in it. So we need to advance the ball equivalently on both fronts such that a cell is there and it’s there in time to have materials to place in it. That’s what we’re going through right now.”
Carr added, “I’m not going to throw out there one way or another. I’d like to see us advance on both fronts. So I personally haven’t come to grips with the total ratifications of this reduced funding. I’m still, myself, working through finding some miracle in it to advance on both fronts to get us there.”
Nickel Recycling Study Moving Forward
Meanwhile, FBP is moving forward with a set of bench-scale studies to examine the use of a nickel carbonyl process to help decontaminate material recovered from plant equipment and make it more attractive for eventual reuse. Approximately 6,400 tons of nickel is expected to be generated through the segmentation of old converters removed from the Portsmouth plant’s former enrichment process buildings, and the Department has long been interested in pursuing recycling at Portsmouth to help reduce the overall amount of waste created through D&D activities that will require disposal. While FBP had expected to complete the bench-scale studies by this month, the schedule has been pushed out to the end of this fiscal year due to revised scope, Carr said. “Basically we wanted to run more tests as part of the progression. So we’re doing that,” he said.
The “goal” of the study, Carr said, is to see if the nickel carbonyl process is suitable for the Portsmouth nickel. “What we’re trying to do is find that sweet spot given the nature of the barrier material we’re using … what’s the proper temperature and pressure conditions under which the reaction will provide us with the product,” he said. “Remember, the decontamination standard that we’re applying here is essentially it has to be as clean or cleaner than commercial grade nickel that’s not associated with the nuclear industry. … So we need to get down to levels that are consistent with natural background.”
Given the hazards posed by the process, FBP recently conducted an internal readiness assessment and is in the final stages of addressing pre-start findings, with actual testing to begin in the next two weeks. “We’re not creating a process. We’re simply doing a bench-scale study in the lab, but the nature of the hazard is such that we felt it necessary to go to a very rigorous readiness process. … The process that we’re looking at uses nickel carbonyl, which is an accurately hazardous material. So we wanted to make certain we had adequate redundancy, or defense-in-depth, again potential release,” Carr said. “We want this to work. We are aggressively pursuing it. But we also got to make this safe.”
