WASHINGTON, D.C. –The Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Savannah River Site (SRS) began a new era of converting “weapons into plowshares”   as the first shipment of low-enriched uranium was sent to Tennessee last week, where it will be adapted to help supply the nation’s energy needs.

The shipment is a major milestone in the High Enriched Uranium (HEU) Blend Down Program, which was honored earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Energy for excellent project management.  The HEU Blend Down Program takes HEU, a weapons-usable form of uranium, and blends it with natural uranium to make Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), which cannot be used in weapons.  The LEU is shipped to NFS in Erwin, Tenn., who will prepare it for fabrication into a fuel for use in TVA’s reactors.

“Today marks a big step in our nation’s nonproliferation efforts,” Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said.   “We have taken material that was left over from the Cold War and turned it into something that is unattractive for use in weapons.   Not only that, but we’ve turned it into a material that has an important peacetime use, producing electricity.”

At the end of the Cold War, when SRS ended production of special nuclear materials, more than 33 metric tons of high enriched uranium were left over in various stages of the nuclear production cycle.  That material, which includes irradiated and unirradiated fuel, solutions and other forms, was included in the 174 metric tons of uranium nationwide that, in 1994, the president declared as excess to the nation’s security needs.  The Office of Fissile Material Disposition (which is now part of the National Nuclear Security Administration) was formed to determine a final disposition path that would meet nuclear nonproliferation goals for these materials.    In 1997, the DOE signed a Memorandum of Understanding with TVA, which then entered into agreements with two additional companies, Nuclear Fuel Services and Framatome, to take part in the conversion to commercial nuclear fuel.

At SRS, fuel assemblies are taken apart and the HEU packaged into bundles in K Area.  The HEU is then moved to the site’s H Area, where it is processed to remove those impurities that would make it unusable as a fuel.  The purified HEU is then blended with natural uranium supplied by TVA and loaded into shipping containers certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  The LEU is then shipped to Nuclear Fuel Services, where it will be converted to an oxide form before it is fabricated into fuel assemblies, which will be used in TVA’s Browns Ferry nuclear plant.  The blending down and shipping of LEU will continue through 2007. Another portion of the site’s HEU, consisting of ingots formed from unirradiated assemblies in the 1990s, is being blended down by NFS.

At SRS, considerable facility construction and modification was undertaken to be able to purify and blend down the uranium and prepare the material for shipment.  Modifications were made to the site’s K and H areas, including modified tanks, piping, and at-line instrumentation.  Modifications were also made to the site’s analytical laboratories, which will test samples of the purified HEU before blending down, as well as the blended LEU, to ensure that it meets all of the specifications.  A new offloading station for moving the HEU into H Canyon, along with a new loading line, where the shipping containers are loaded with LEU, were constructed for the project.

Media Contact(s):
Joe Davis, 202-586-4940                                                      
Dolline Hatchett, 202-586-4940