The Department of Energy will employ the Savannah River Site’s H-Canyon facility to help prepare up plutonium oxide feed for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility currently under construction at the site, the Department said yesterday. In total, H-Canyon will be used to produce approximately 3.7 metric tons of MOX feed using the non-pit plutonium that is currently stored at Savannah River. “Initial start-up preparations” for plutonium oxide production is scheduled to begin this fiscal year, with H-Canyon to produce approximately 200 kilograms of material in “its next full year of operation” and to ramp up to a full production rate of 1 metric ton per year in FY 2015, DOE said.
The decision comes as little surprise. In an interview with WC Monitor in late September, Garry Flowers, the former head of SRS managing contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, indicated that the National Nuclear Security Administration was looking to fund new missions for the H-Canyon facility. In its release yesterday, DOE said that NNSA’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation will provide approximately $20 million in FY 2012 to help fund “the incremental operating cost” to prepare H-Canyon to produce MOX feed, adding, “This decision will result in a cost-effective approach for producing plutonium oxide for the MOX Facility that utilizes current resources and capabilities.”