There is still no projection for the release date of a final environmental assessment (EA) on the Savannah River Site’s possible receipt of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany, according to a Sept. 20 update on Department of Energy EAs and environmental impact statements (EIS). The department projected a July 2016 earlier this year after issuing the draft EA, which addresses the potential impacts from 30 shipments of spent nuclear fuel to Joint Base Charleston in South Carolina over a 3.5-year span, with each shipment encompassing eight to 16 casks secured in regulation shipping containers. The draft EA found minimal risk in transporting the weapon-grade nuclear material from Germany to the United States.
The material would arrive in the form of 1 million graphite spheres, each about the size of a tennis ball. Germany first proposed giving the material back to U.S. in 2012 when it asked the Energy Department for help in disposing of the HEU, which dates back to the 1950s. The HEU was produced in the U.S., which sent weapon-grade uranium to several other countries for research purposes through the Atoms for Peace program launched in 1953 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The material was used in German research reactors and is now considered spent fuel. Under the program, the U.S. is supposed to take it back, even though one of the options DOE is considering is to take no action and let the material remain in Germany.
While no officials were authorized to speak on the record, DOE said in a prepared statement Wednesday that senior managers within the department’s Office of Environmental Management are evaluating the environmental assessment. “A tentative release date has not been set at this time,” according to the statement. “Additional actions will be determined when this evaluation is complete.”
If the two nations proceed with the project, the German government would work with DOE to transport the material in chartered ships across the Atlantic Ocean to Joint Base Charleston, near Charleston, S.C., according to the draft EA. The material would then travel by train to SRS in accordance with U.S. regulatory requirements. Once on site, the HEU would be processed and dispositioned into a less dangerous form at the site’s H Canyon, the only hardened chemical separations plant still in existence in the United States. The final product would be stored at SRS until the federal government secures a long-term repository for nuclear waste. It is unclear how much the full project would cost, but Germany would pay for the entire project, according to the draft EA.
Locals in the SRS community near Aiken, S.C., have been debating the German fuel shipment for a number of years. At a SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) meeting in July, for example, board member Gil Allensworth said the U.S. should honor the Atoms for Peace agreement and take the material back. But fellow board member Larry Powell disagreed, mainly because he feels the site already stores too much unwanted nuclear material.
SRS has received several shipments of highly enriched uranium in recent memory through other agreements, such as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). Under the initiative, the U.S. has removed or eliminated more than 5,000 kilograms of HEU since 1994. Much of that material has been handled at SRS, though it is unclear how much. In September, the site received 1 kilogram of HEU from Jamaica and 2.2 kilograms from Switzerland.
“Before we start getting more material,” Powell said, “we need to do develop an exit strategy to get some of this other material off-site.”
