Most SRS WIPP shipments in fiscal 24 resulted from down blend program

More than half of the transuranic waste shipments hauled away from the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in fiscal 2024 came from plutonium downblending, a DOE spokesperson said last week.

In response to an inquiry from Exchange Monitor, the spokesperson said via email that 35 of the 59 transuranic waste shipments sent to DOE’s  Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from Savannah River in fiscal 2024 resulted from the department’s program to dilute and dispose of surplus plutonium held in South Carolina.

That matched the projections offered in March by a manager for the site’s management and operations, Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration is overseeing construction of a second glove box at the site’s K-Area to increase the pace of downblending.

According to DOE, the Savannah River Site is downblending 13.1 metric tons of surplus plutonium and mixing it with a concrete-like grout so that it cannot be used in nuclear weapons. After the material is downblended into a transuranic waste form, it is packed in containers, certified and eventually shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for underground disposal.

None of the 13.1 metric tons of plutonium come from surplus pits, or fissile first stage weapon cores, according to DOE.

The 24 transuranic waste shipments that did not come from the dilute and dispose program came from Savannah River’s Solid Waste Management Facility, the DOE spokesperson said. The Solid Waste Management Facility shipped 150 cubic meters of transuranic waste to WIPP in fiscal 2024, the DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a recent press release.