Thousands of pounds of stainless steel originally intended for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., has been donated to welding programs at nearby high schools and colleges.
Fifteen high schools and colleges each received a ton of metal from the U.S. Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). That totals 30,000 pounds of donated material that was never actually used for the facility. The recipient schools include South Aiken High School, Allendale Fairfax High School, Aiken Technical College, and Denmark Technical College, among others.
Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS), the site’s management and operations contractor, has been tasked with finding ways to deal with the metal that would have been used for various internal processes at the MOX facility.
“This is scrap material to us, but it’s something the schools usually can’t get and could use to prepare students for really good jobs,” Mark Hall, the SRNS staffer who is leading the donation effort, said in a press release last week. “Usually, welders don’t get to train with stainless until they’re already on the job. With access to this material, they can be trained and ready when they arrive.”
The donated material had an estimated value of $10,800. It was designed for specific use at the MOX facility and would not have been adequate for other missions within the agency.
The National Nuclear Security Administration spent over $5 billion on the MFFF, which was intended to convert 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel. Construction began in 2007 and was terminated in October 2018. The plutonium will instead be downblended at Savannah River for permanent disposal underground at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
The stainless steel provides more realistic practice for welding students, who usually must settle for training on carbon steel or other materials that mimic the metal, according to the press release.
Another school that benefitted from the donations is the Aiken County Career & Technology Center. Daniel Ball, a welding instructor at the school, said in the press release that working with stainless steel gives his students a leg up in experience. “Stainless is so different – it kind of has a mind of its own. Using this material, we will basically train them up so they can be placed with employers like SRS,” he said.
Another 200 tons of prefabricated stainless steel intended for the MOX plant is being sold through a scrap dealer, while additional bulk steel will be evaluated for use by other NNSA projects. The NNSA and Savannah River Nuclear Solutions are currently identifying uses for other materials left over from MOX that no longer be used by the federal agency.
