A team of Department of Energy officials under the scope of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is recovering heavy curium and plutonium-244 from irradiated fuel targets stored at the Savannah River Site. The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) near Aiken, S.C. is heading up the effort, with collaborative help from the Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories.
According to SRNL, the curium and plutonium-244 in question are rare and valuable. The 65 fuel targets, or assemblies, the materials are stored inside have been on site for more than 35 years and possess more than 80 percent of the world’s stockpile of the two elements. Specifically, the plutonium can be used in high-accuracy measurements analysis. The plutonium can be used as reference material to analyze and identify other nuclear materials. The curium stored at SRS can be used to produce californium, a chemical element that can be used for oil exploration and medical research.
The effort of removing the assemblies from storage and recovering the curium and plutonium will happen over several years, Bill Swift, the nuclear materials program manager for SRNL, said in the press release. Once recovered, the material will be sent to Oak Ridge for purification and will be used to support isotope production. Richard Meehan, the director of DOE-NNSA’s Office of Nuclear Materials Integration, added that the effort will play a pivotal role in national security efforts. “Producing reference materials like plutonium-244 is vital for national safeguards and nonproliferation programs,” he said.
