A project to ship highly enriched uranium from a facility in Ontario, Canada, to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina wrapped up sometime last year, according to a Wednesday press release.
It is unclear when the shipments were completed, but DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said the job was finished 12 months ahead of schedule. The news was first reported this week during the International Conference on Nuclear Security in Austria, where NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty and Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette were in attendance.
The agency did not state how many shipments were made, but they covered transport of 200 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium from the Chalk River Laboratories to the Energy Department facility near Aiken, S.C., a distance of about 1,176 miles. Prior to the start of the mission in April 2017, the NNSA said the job would involve between 100 and 150 shipments. The Energy Department conducted the transport.
Other details of the mission were also unclear Wednesday. For example, DOE’s November 2015 supplemental analysis on the mission states that it would include the transport and processing of 6,000 gallons of uranium. But Wednesday’s press release states only 200 kilograms were transported. The Energy Department did not immediately provide comment on the matter.
Regardless, the NNSA said the 200 kilograms represent the largest removal of spent nuclear fuel to the United States
The HEU shipments are part of a 2010 agreement signed by then-U.S. President Barack Obama and then-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The uranium is of U.S. origin, but it is unclear how and where it was used.
At the Savannah River Site, the H Canyon facility is converting the material into low-enriched uranium that will be sent to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to power commercial nuclear reactors. It is unclear how much longer conversion will take. But the NNSA previously reported shipments and processing would take up to three years, which would put April 2020 as a target date.
