Operations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s 65-year-old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building could extend two years past their latest intended end date, according to management at the Department of Energy facility.
The “potential slip” of programmatic operations from 2019 to 2021 was reported in a December letter from lab Director Charles McMillan to National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz, according to a Dec. 9 Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board site report made public earlier this month.
“LANL cites the source of the schedule risk in funding alignment issues and the delay in the [Critical Decision] 2/3 approval and with the equipment installation subprojects,” the DNFSB said. “Notwithstanding this potential delay, the Director noted past and continued risk reduction activities at CMR.”
The NNSA, a semiautonomous branch of the Department of Energy with a mandate to sustain the U.S. nuclear deterrent, had by NS&D Monitor’s deadline Friday not released McMillan’s letter or provided additional details about the situation.
The 550,000-square-foot CMR facility hosts laboratory capabilities for analytical chemistry, nuclear materials analysis, and other activities in support of NNSA nuclear security missions including stockpile surveillance, nonproliferation, and nuclear waste treatment technology development. That notably encompasses testing the reliability of the plutonium nuclear-weapon cores produced in the laboratory’s Plutonium Facility.
Given the CMR facility’s advanced age, and its location atop a seismic fault line, the NNSA in 2005 signed off on building the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR). The project was to encompass two new facilities, according to a 2016 Government Accountability Office report: a sizable nuclear facility and another structure that would house a radiological lab and office space. Most of the plutonium analysis gear would go into the new nuclear facility.
At the time the facilities were estimated to cost $745 million to $975 million, and the radiological lab was completed in 2013 with a price tag of roughly $400 million. However, the projected cost for the nuclear facility skyrocketed as high as $5.8 billion, with operations potentially pushed back from 2017 to 2022. After the NNSA spent more than $450 million on that part of the CMRR, agency leadership suspended development and ordered an evaluation of alternatives for carrying out the plutonium analysis mission, the GAO said: “NNSA also committed to ending plutonium operations in the aging Chemistry and Metallurgy Research facility by the end of 2019, given the safety concerns.”
The DOE agency in 2014 canceled the CMRR nuclear facility in favor of acquiring plutonium analysis gear that would be installed in the new radiological laboratory and existing Plutonium Facility. Also under consideration was use of modular nuclear facilities for high-hazard, high-security laboratory operations.
In DOE parlance, Critical Decision 2 is approving a project baseline and Critical Decision 3 is the start of construction. The revised CMRR replacement involved two subprojects: installation of plutonium analysis equipment into the radiological laboratory by 2019; and installation of additional gear in the Plutonium Facility by 2024. That process is ongoing, with the revised CMRR cost projected to max out at $2 billion, according to the GAO report.
A Nov. 4 DNFSB site report said Klotz had that week approved Critical Decision 2/3: the performance baseline and beginning of construction for phase 1 of the plutonium facility equipment installation and phase 2 of the radiological laboratory equipment installation.
“These subprojects of the CMR Replacement project . . . are needed to move the remaining analytical chemistry and material characterization activities out of CMR,” the DNFSB said. “The CD-2/3 approval letter identifies the scope of the subprojects to include outfitting or repurposing 10,000 square feet of laboratory space in [the radiological laboratory] and 2,800 square feet of space in the Plutonium Facility. Additionally, the letter indicates these projects are scheduled to receive approval for CD-4, Start of Operations, in early calendar year 2022.”
