A rope cordons the construction site for the Actinide Packaging and Storage Facility at the Savannah River Site. The plant will store some plutonium scheduled for treatment at the site.JEFF JANOWSKI/STAFF

Plutonium disposal involves two methods

Web posted May 30, 1999

By Brandon Haddock
Staff Writer

If a mission to produce mixed-oxide fuel comes to Savannah River Site, it probably will require more than one new facility.

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced in December that he planned to consolidate U.S. efforts to dispose of plutonium at SRS. The nation has about 55 surplus tons of the excess metal, a key component of nuclear weapons.

Energy Department officials intend to dispose of plutonium using two methods. One method would encase pucks of plutonium within highly radioactive glass formed from nuclear waste.

Click the image above for a full-sized version of the graphic "How nuclear waste is processed."

The second, more controversial method would bond the plutonium with oxygen to produce an oxide. Workers would use the oxide in mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel, a nuclear-reactor fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.

Mr. Richardson is expected to make his decision final this spring when he issues a ``record of decision,'' a formal document required by federal law.

To build and operate the plants necessary to produce MOX fuel would require about $965 million, and would create about 925 construction jobs in the Aiken-Augusta area during an six-year period. After completion, the plants would employ about 750 people, according to Energy Department estimates.

AN SRS SPECIAL SECTION

STORIES

• Plutonium disposal key to SRS future  • Disposal mission brings plutonium full circle  • Plutonium disposal involves two methods  • Groups still concerned by using MOX fuel       Missions expected to stabilize work force  •  Politicians working for new mission at SRS

GRAPHICS

• Nuclear weapons treatment  • How nuclear waste is processed  • Plutonium storage sites  • SRS' ecomonic impact

Energy Department officials already have selected contractors to design and build the plants. Colorado-based Raytheon Engineers & Constructor Inc. will design the $405 million pit disassembly and conversion plant.

The pit conversion plant will complete the first step in the MOX process. At the plant, about 400 workers will take apart the ``pits'' -- the radioactive cores of nuclear weapons -- and convert the plutonium metal inside into an oxide.

Energy Department officials are negotiating with Raytheon for a 2 1/2 -year, $40 million contract to design the plant.

In March, Energy Department officials selected a consortium of three companies to design and build the next phase of the MOX process, the $560 million MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility.

Duke Engineering & Services, COGEMA Inc. and Stone & Webster received a $130 million contract to design the $400 million plant, said Bert Stevenson, outreach director for the Energy Department's Office of Fissile Materials Disposition. Energy officials have an option to extend the contract into the plant's construction phase, he said.

At the facility, about 350 workers would blend uranium oxides with the plutonium oxides created at the pit conversion plant. The oxides would be used to createMOX fuel.

Immobilization of plutonium within radioactive glass would occur at the Defense Waste Processing Facility, which already is operating at SRS. But the process would require the plutonium to be baked into ceramic pucks, a process that would take place at a proposed immobilization plant.

The plant would cost from $478 million to $484 million to build and operate, and would employ about 250 people, according to Energy Department estimates.

Before treatment, plutonium would be stored at several SRS facilities. Much plutonium would be stored at one of the site's five inactive nuclear reactors, and other plutonium would be stored at the proposed Actinide Packaging and Storage Facility.

Workers began building the plant but suspended construction when site officials learned that all plutonium plants probably would be located at SRS, said John Pescosolido, the Energy Department's chief financial officer at the site.

A team of experts from throughout the Energy Department is studying a plan that would combine two or more of the proposed plants, Mr. Pescosolido said. If possible, the plan would save millions of dollars, he said.

Brandon Haddock covers energy issues for The Augusta Chronicle. He can be reached at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com.