Thousands of pounds of stainless steel originally intended for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., has been donated to welding programs at nearby high schools and colleges.
Fifteen high schools and colleges each received a ton of metal from the U.S. Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). That totals 30,000 pounds of donated material. They include South Aiken High School, Allendale Fairfax High School, Aiken Technical College, and Denmark Technical College, among others.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations contractor, has been tasked with finding ways to disposition the metal. “This is scrap material to us, but it’s something the schools usually can’t get and could use to prepare students for really good jobs,” Mark Hall, the SRNS employee who is leading the donation effort, said in a press release last week. “Usually, welders don’t get to train with stainless until they’re already on the job. With access to this material, they can be trained and ready when they arrive.”
The National Nuclear Security Administration spent over $5 billion on the MFFF, which was intended to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. Construction began in 2007 and was terminated in October 2018. The plutonium will instead be downblended at Savannah River for permanent disposal underground at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The federal agency determined the stainless steel could not be used within any other programs, but could be used elsewhere. The metal provides more realistic practice for welding students, who usually must settle for training on carbon steel or other materials that mimic stainless steel, according to the press release.
