The management prime at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina has resumed downblending plutonium at the K Area after operations were suspended in October 2019.
Workers for site manager Savannah River Nuclear Solutions started downblending 6 metric tons (MT) of surplus plutonium in the K Area in 2017, but the operations were paused for nearly a year for an extensive maintenance outage to improve processing capabilities.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions detailed the resumption of operation in a July 23 press release.
In 2016, DOE decided to dispose of the plutonium managed by the Office of Environmental Management by diluting it with an adulterant and emplacing it the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant transuranic waste disposal mine in New Mexico, an SRNS spokesperson said by email Wednesday. The material is weapon-grade plutonium declared excess to national security.
The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is analyzing that same dilute-and-dispose process to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium, some of which is also stored at the K Area Complex, the spokesperson said.
The upgrades, designed to speed removal of plutonium from South Carolina, include installation of a new wing cabinet to expand the glove-box working area; new material entry and removal devices for the glove box; implementing new waste removal processes and waste minimization practices; and making special carts to move the downblend containers through the glovebox.
The work is being done at the existing K-Area Interim Support (KIS) glove box retrofitted for downblending of surplus plutonium.
The project is distinct from the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program, which has an $80 million line item in the fiscal 2020 budget to expand capacity by building three new glove boxes, the spokesperson said. That program will process the 34 metric tons of plutonium that was supposed to be converted into reactor fuel at the now-canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS.
The new glove boxes are scheduled to be completed by fiscal 2028. The Savannah River facility is expected to continue packing and shipping diluted plutonium for disposal of the larger tranche of plutonium into the 2040s. Ultimately, the new SRS glove-box construction cost will amount to between $448 million and $620 million.
“Despite facing challenges resulting from COVID-19 our team was able to meet the commitment date to restart plutonium downblend in the KIS glovebox,” SRNS President and CEO Stuart MacVean said in the release. Along with restarting operations, SRNS is also working to increase staffing from two-to-four-hour shifts, which entails more employee training.
The Savannah River plutonium downblending operation is moving toward around-the-clock operation. About 100 new staff members have been hired to achieve that goal, including engineers, trainers, and radiation protection specialists, which brings the project’s current headcount to 280.
Both the downblending of the 6 metric tons with the existing glovebox and the planned construction of three additional glove boxes for the 34 metric tons of material will assist with the goal of moving the plutonium out of South Carolina, the SRNS spokesperson said. The state has filed multiple lawsuits against the NNSA in recent years to advance that goal.
“This is yet another example of NNSA missions being completed in DOE-Environmental Management facilities and the partnership that is needed to execute this critical mission,” said Virginia Kay, director of the NNSA’s Office of Material Disposition, in the press release.
