The City of Oak Ridge remained on the lookout this week for the fromalizing of a National Nuclear Security Administration contract that would, against the city’s wishes, move some uranium conversion and purification work to Nuclear Fuel Services from the Y-12 National Security.
“The transfer of this function could begin with a Phase I contract announcement coming as soon as March 1, 2021,” the town wrote in a press release last week.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to give the BWX Technologies subsidiary a sole-source uranium conversion and purification contract some time this year, following an unsolicited offer from the company.
The town of Oak Ridge has consistently called the NNSA’s plans to outsource the work a job killer for the city, while the agency has maintained that Y-12 “will not see a reduction in work scope, or in employment.”
The NNSA plans a two-phase contract with Nuclear Fuel Services, Erwin, Tenn. The first stage would be a sort of prove-it deal, requiring the company to design and demonstrate the conversion and purification capabilities the agency is after. If the NNSA likes what it sees, it could pull the trigger on a second phase, involving the actual processing of uranium for use in nuclear-weapon secondary stages made at Y-12.
The NNSA currently coverts uranium oxides and purifies uranium metal in Y-12’s Building 9215. However, the agency is replacing the old wet chemistry systems there with an electrorefining system that, starting around 2023, will be able to purify uranium metal for use in nuclear weapons, but not convert uranium oxide to metal.
Eventually, the NNSA plans to bring all the work back to Building 9215, an agency spokesperson wrote in an email Monday. Until then, Nuclear Fuel Services will be a hedge. The NNSA spokesperson said oxide conversion “is not planned to be established at Y-12 until about 2030.”
Editor’s note, 03/01/2021, 9:48 p.m. Eastern time: the story was corrected to say that Building 9215 will handle conversion and purification work until 2023 and purification work from 2023 until around 2030, according to current NNSA plans.
