Cleanup progress at the former Portsmouth and Paducah uranium enrichment plants is helping enable new opportunities for local communities to continue advancing U.S. energy and U.S. security goals, Joel Bradburne, manager of the Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO), said here last week.
If I had to characterize our status at PPPO right now, I would say it is transformative.
The Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO) achieved significant priorities, goals and milestones in 2024, advancing cleanup and preparing its two sites for future use.
Portsmouth Paducah Project Office (PPPO) Manager Joel Bradburne speaks to members of the PPPO workforce gathered at the Paducah Site for the “Success Powered by Safety” celebration.
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management’s plants that convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) to more stable compounds recently returned to full operations at both the Portsmouth and Paducah sites’ first-of-a-kind facilities.
David Lu, completed his summer internship at the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) headquarters in Washington, D.C. in August. Later that month, he toured the EM Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Conversion Plant at the Paducah Site near his hometown of Murray, Kentucky.
The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (EM) Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) recently awarded $9.8 million, or about 98% of the available fee, to Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, the prime contractor for the Portsmouth Site’s decontamination and decommissioning project in Ohio, for its performance during the evaluation period of the first four months of fiscal year 2024.
Recent upgrades to EM’s facilities that convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) to more stable compounds for reuse or disposal are delivering improved safety, reliability, operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
EM achieves another milestone in its offsite shipping and disposal of depleted uranium oxide from the Portsmouth site.
EM has successfully commenced a major disposal effort for a key uranium-enrichment byproduct with the recent arrival of 60 uranium-oxide storage cylinders by rail at a licensed facility in west Texas.