Substandard contractor performance delayed the launch of a new Uranium Processing Facility at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee until 2029, according to the agency’s latest annual progress report.
The start of operations at the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF), a milestone known as CD-4, has now slid four years out to 2029. In 2022, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) acknowledged there would be a two-year delay. By the time the agency released its 2024 budget request, the delay had stretched to three or four years.
Now, in the 2024 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, the NNSA estimated UPF will begin operations in the last year of the decade owing to “contractor performance that was below expectations, direct and indirect impacts from the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic, and labor availability and procurement costs,” NNSA wrote in the plan, an annual, unclassified progress report that this year runs more than 360 pages.
“The project is undergoing a Federal re-baseline,” NNSA wrote in the report published, online and submitted to Congress on Nov. 27. Bechtel National is the lead contractor on UPF, doing the work as a subcontractor to Y-12 site prime Consolidated Nuclear Security, a team Bechtel leads.
UPF is designed to replace an older, existing facility that processes highly enriched uranium (HEU) for use in the secondary stages of nuclear weapons, in nuclear naval propulsion reactors and in other NNSA efforts.
Topping the list of projects necessary for UPF to begin operation is shutting down the existing, 80-year-old Building 9212, where the most hazardous HEU work is done.
The building does not meet modern safety standards, prompting the NNSA to move its functions to the new UPF. That likely will not be complete, paving the way for a CD-4 decision on UPF until the end of 2029, when the NNSA expects to “end dependency” on Building 9212, the report said.
“As part of the relocation strategy, modern capabilities will be deployed and existing processes will be simplified,’ the Stockpile Stewardship Plan said.
The Uranium Processing Facility will replace Building 9212 capabilities for HEU casting, special oxide production, chemical recovery, and decontamination, according to the stockpile plan. HEU casting and special oxide production will be housed in the Uranium Processing Facility’s Main Process Building, while chemical recovery, decontamination, and assay will take place in the Uranium Processing Facility’s Salvage and Accountability Building. A third building, the Uranium Processing Facility’s Mechanical/Electrical Equipment Building, will provide utilities and other support systems.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Congress in March that there are at least 500 too few employees at Y-12, which has contributed to a cost increase and schedule slip for UPF.
In its budget request for fiscal year 2024, the NNSA said UPF would cost between $8.5 billion and $8.95 billion to complete. That’s up from a previous estimated project cost of $6.5 billion and a construction-complete date of Dec. 31, 2025 at the latest. The agency acknowledged last year that UPF wouldn’t make those goals.
The budget request pegs the UPF completion date to sometime between December 2028 and March 2029.
