January 19, 2016

Assessment Evaluates Risks of Shipping German Uranium to SRS

By ExchangeMonitor

A draft environmental assessment (EA) from the Department of Energy finds minimal risk in a possible, heatedly contested plan for the Savannah River Site to receive and process highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany. The Department of Energy reported Friday that completion of the draft EA does not constitute a decision to accept the HEU, which would arrive in the form of 1 million graphite spheres. The department previously reported that each sphere is about the size of a tennis ball and would come from German research reactors.

Shipments would fall under the Atoms for Peace program established by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which made the uranium available to countries that wanted it for research. Under the program, the U.S. agreed to eventually take the material back, which explains the effort to recover the uranium from Germany.

If feasibility studies show adequate promise, and 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 using the site’s H Canyon, the only hardened chemical separations plant still in existence in the United States.

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