Oak Ridge Today

Crews demolish ORNL reactor once used for aircraft nuclear propulsion research

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Demolition began in September 2022 on the Bulk Shielding Reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it was completed in November. It was the first teardown of a former reactor at the site. (Photo by U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management)

Workers have demolished a nuclear reactor that was built at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1950s for studies that were part of the federal aircraft nuclear propulsion program.

It’s the first demolition of a reactor in the ORNL central campus area. The demolition was reported to be completed ahead of schedule.

The Bulk Shielding Reactor, also known as Building 3010, was built in the 1950s for radiation shielding studies as part of the federal aircraft nuclear propulsion program. It included a 27-foot-deep reactor pool filled with water to shield the radioactive components contained in the pool, according to the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management. Its mission changed to a general-purpose research reactor in 1963, and it was shut down permanently in 1991.

The reactor was demolished by cleanup contractor UCOR, working for DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM).

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Mercury cleanup: COLEX equipment deactivated at Y-12

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Oak Ridge workers remove mercury and mercury-contaminated solids from process pipes in the column exchange, or COLEX, equipment at the Alpha-4 facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. (Submitted photo)

Crews are nearly finished deactivating the second of three collections of old, mercury-contaminated equipment around the Alpha-4 facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, a press release said.

The project addresses potential environmental risks and moves the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management a step closer to preparing one of Y-12’s largest high-risk contaminated facilities for demolition, the press release said.

The column exchange, or COLEX, structures are connected to the four-story 500,000-square-foot Alpha-4 building, which was used for uranium separation from 1944 to 1945. Workers finished installing the COLEX equipment in 1955 for lithium separation, a process that required large amounts of mercury. A significant amount of the mercury was lost into the equipment, buildings, and surrounding soils, and its cleanup is one of EM’s top priorities.

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