The Department of Energy has so far delivered 12 shipments of down blended plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico from the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to a public waste database.
The most recent shipment that DOE has made public arrived at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., on July 14, according to the agency’s Waste Data System/WIPP Waste Information System. Down-blended plutonium from Savannah River Site’s dilute and dispose program is typically sent to WIPP in multiple bundles of seven 55-gallon drums measuring about six feet across.
Each of the dozen shipments DOE has so far disclosed for fiscal year 2023 contained six bundles of drums for a total of 504 drums. Shipments typically do not appear in WIPP’s public database until two weeks after they arrive at the deep-underground salt mine.
In a press release last week, DOE said the dilute and dispose program recently completed its 100th plutonium down-blend so far in fiscal 2023. Down-blended shipments are expected to reach 160 annually within a decade, according to the Fluor-led Savannah River Site operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions.
Plutonium materials at Savannah River’s K Area are diluted with an adulterant, sometimes called stardust, inside a glove box to make the fissile material unusable in nuclear weapons. The resulting mixture of transuranic waste is then shipped to WIPP.
Savannah River is currently down-blending a tranche of about six metric tons of plutonium. The first such down-blended shipment to WIPP occurred in December 2022, Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, the site’s operations contractor, told a South Carolina panel earlier this year.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is installing new glove boxes at Savannah River as it prepares to process a separate tranche of 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium for shipment as transuranic waste to WIPP.
Funding for the new K-Area facilities, which DOE hopes will expedite plutonium removal from South Carolina, is included under NNSA’ U.S. Plutonium Disposition program. The White House requested $235 million in its budget justification for that NNSA program in fiscal 2024, up from $205 million in fiscal 2023. The work is being closely coordinated between NNSA and the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
The K Area down-blending started in 2016 before being suspended in 2019 to upgrade equipment and improve training, DOE said in its recent press release. The K Area facility has gone to four-from-two shifts and increased its workforce so down-blending can now occur around the clock, DOE said.
As part of a 2020 settlement, DOE has new legal deadlines to remove plutonium from South Carolina.
