The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration has received the implementation plan for extending the service lives of two decades-old enriched uranium processing buildings at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, an agency spokesman said this week.
The Extended Life Program implementation plan for the nuclear-weapon site’s Buildings 9215 and 9204-2E is considered a controlled document that will not be made public. The agency offered few new details of the program this week.
“An implementation plan for the Extended Life Program has been submitted to [the NNSA Production Office], and will be used to inform program planning decisions,” NNSA spokesman Steven Wyatt said by email Tuesday. “9215 and 9204-2E are considered to be enduring facilities, therefore their upkeep will continue in order to maintain the buildings and the processes within them until replacement facilities are established.”
The implementation plan from Y-12 management and operations contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security was due by Nov. 1.
Enriched uranium processing at Y-12 contributes to the NNSA’s defense operations, including nuclear weapons life extension. The facility also stores the nation’s strategic reserve of enriched uranium.
Building 9215 is roughly 60 years old, while Building 9204-E, also called Beta-2E, is over 45 years old. Under the life-extension program they would operate for at least three more decades to conduct all processing operations at Y-12 not handled by the site’s Uranium Processing Facility, which is to be completed by 2025 with a price tag of up to $6.5 billion. Collectively, the new and refurbished facilities would replace the even older 9212 complex.
The state of the existing buildings is a point of concern shared by multiple agencies. They “do not meet modern nuclear facility design requirements,” the DOE Inspector General’s Office said in a report in July, adding that “Due to the condition of the buildings and equipment, serious concerns about the future reliability of the facilities have been raised by NNSA and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.”
The life extension is intended to sustain “enriched uranium processes, infrastructure, and supporting utilities in Building 9204-2E (Beta-2E) and 9215” through 2050, according to a report obtained this year by the Knoxville News Sentinel. While the program’s cost has not been released, the report said the “notional” expense could be about $400 million. A chart included in the document said the price tag could hit $20 million to $25 million per year over two decades for “maintenance above base.”
“A plan for refurbishment and maintenance has been established, but the details of funding and priorities will be an ongoing process,” Wyatt stated.