Nevada National Security Site Archives

Y-12 criticality alarms function properly in tests

Posted at 2:26 pm January 7, 2019
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Nuclear Materials Corporation GA-6 Radiation Detector (Photo courtesy CNS Y-12)

Alarms designed to detect a nuclear criticality accident at the Y-12 National Security Complex have been tested, and the systems functioned appropriately and as required, the plant said in November.

Y-12 has had a criticality accident alarm system since 1945. A criticality accident would occur if there were an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction. It could result in the release of radiation and significant exposures to nearby workers if the area were not immediately evacuated. It’s something that the plant takes steps to avoid. The alarms are designed to alert workers if there is an accident.

A nuclear criticality alarm at the 811-acre plant, which works on nuclear weapons components and stores highly enriched uranium, has been given credit for helping to save lives in a nuclear criticality accident in 1958. In that case, which was the first process criticality accident in the United States, Y-12 employees immediately evacuated when they heard the alarm.

A report published by Consolidated Nuclear Security, a federal contractor, said the basic design and electronic configuration of the older criticality alarm system installed in Y-12’s existing facilities, with the exception of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, date back to 1957. The legacy system has received many upgrades since installation, and detector stations have been removed and relocated as enriched uranium operations have evolved, said the report, titled “Qualification of Y-12 Legacy Criticality Accident Alarm System Detectors.” [Read more…]

Y-12 manufactured uranium core for space power experiment

Posted at 1:06 pm January 5, 2019
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge manufactured the uranium core piece for the KRUSTY experiment, which is testing a new power source that could provide safe, efficient energy for future robotic and human space exploration missions. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge manufactured the uranium core piece for the KRUSTY experiment, which tested a new nuclear power source that could provide safe, efficient energy for robotic and human space exploration missions. (Photo courtesy NNSA)

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge manufactured the uranium reactor core for a federal experiment that tested whether a nuclear energy source could provide power for space exploration.

“The full-power run showed that it may be feasible for NASA to use small fission reactors for deep space exploration and manned missions to the moon and Mars,” the National Nuclear Security Administration said in May.

The NNSA, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, worked with NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration) on the project. It’s nicknamed KRUSTY, an acronym for Kilowatt Reactor Using Stirling Technology.

“In a joint venture with NASA last year, NNSA completed final design, fabrication, and full-power testing of a nuclear criticality experiment that can be used for a manned lunar or Mars space mission,” NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty said in a post published on Twitter on Friday.

The uranium reactor core from Y-12 was delivered to the National Criticality Experiments Research Center at the Nevada National Security Site in the fall of 2017. [Read more…]

NNSA deploying systems to counter drones, including at Y-12

Posted at 11:09 pm November 19, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

The counter-unmanned aircraft system installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to enforce the federally designated no-drone zone. (Photo courtesy National Nuclear Security Administration)

The National Nuclear Security Administration is deploying systems that will counter drones at four sites that house special nuclear materials, including the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.

Deployed by the Office of Defense Nuclear Security, the systems are designed to mitigate any malicious aerial intruders at NNSA sites. They will have the capability to detect, identify, track, and intercept unsanctioned and suspicious drones, the NNSA said Monday.

One system has already been deployed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

“We needed a system to counter threats ranging from on-site disruption by protestors to intelligence gathering, surveillance, and reconnaissance of NNSA sites, plants, and labs,” said Lewis Monroe III, director of security operations and programmatic planning. [Read more…]

Y-12 reactor core could be used for power on Moon, Mars

Posted at 10:50 pm February 15, 2018
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

NASA fission power system concept (Image credit: NASA Glenn Research Center)

A reactor core that includes highly enriched uranium alloy components produced at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge could power future space exploration, including on the Moon and Mars, federal officials said.

The reactor core fabricated at Y-12 has been delivered to the Nevada National Security Site, where it is being used in a experiment called Kilopower. That’s a new power source that could provide safe, efficient energy for future robotic and human space exploration missions, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. The power source could help provide lighting, water, and oxygen on those missions.

NASA said the pioneering space power system, which would use nuclear fission, could provide up to 10 kilowatts of continuous electrical power for at least 10 years. That’s enough power to run two average households.

Four Kilopower units would provide enough power to establish an outpost, NASA said. The system could enable long-term stays on planetary surfaces.

Testing, which started in November, is being performed through this spring at the National Critical Experiments Research Center in the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada National Security Site. [Read more…]

About half of uranium-233 waste shipped from Building 3019 at ORNL

Posted at 10:13 pm November 26, 2017
By John Huotari 1 Comment

At left is a picture of an actual 24-inch steel canister of waste from the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Program. At right is a representation of the canister interior. (File photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Environmental Management)

About half of the uranium-233 waste stored in Building 3019 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been shipped to a disposal facility in Nevada.

The shipments were completed in August, said Jay Mullis, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.

But federal officials were only recently able to announce the end of the shipments of the waste from the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Program, or CEUSP. The waste contained radioisotopes of uranium from a 1960s research and development test of thorium and uranium reactor fuel at the Consolidated Edison Indian Point-1 reactor in New York. The test was sponsored by the Atomic Energy Commission, a predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The shipments were completed 10 months ahead of schedule, Mullis told the Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board on Wednesday, November 8. The CEUSP waste had been treated and turned into a ceramic matrix. It was shipped from Building 3019 at ORNL, where it had been stored, to the Nevada National Security Site, a former nuclear weapons proving ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. DOE started shipping the waste materials to the Nevada National Security Site in May 2015. [Read more…]

GAO: DOE has more than 80 percent of U.S. government’s environmental liabilities

Posted at 9:18 pm September 3, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Workers clean 5,700 feet of piping on Alpha-4’s west side at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. (Photo by U.S. Department of Energy)

Workers clean 5,700 feet of piping on Alpha 4’s west side at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. Alpha 4 was built in 1944. It was used first for enriching uranium as part of the Manhattan Project and later for thermonuclear weapons production. It was shut down in 1987 and will be demolished. (Photo by U.S. Department of Energy)

Note: This story was last updated at 3:20 p.m. September 4.

The U.S. Department of Energy is responsible for more than 80 percent of the U.S. government’s estimated $450 billion in environmental liabilities, a federal agency said in a report published this year.

The agency, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, added the government’s environmental liabilities to a high-risk list of federal programs and operations in a report published in February.

Total environmental liabilities for the federal government are estimated at $447 billion. DOE is responsible for about $372 billion of them, or 83 percent, according to a fiscal year 2016 estimate, the GAO said.

Most of DOE’s environmental liability is related to nuclear waste cleanup, the GAO said. Fifty percent of it is at two cleanup sites: the Hanford Site in Washington state and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

The GAO—an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress—said DOE’s total reported environmental liability has generally increased since 2000. It’s roughly doubled from a low of $176 billion in fiscal year 1997 to the higher estimate of $372 billion in fiscal year 2016.

“In the last six years alone, EM (environmental management) has spent $35 billion, primarily to treat and dispose of nuclear and hazardous waste and construct capital projects to treat the waste, while EM’s portion of the environmental liability has grown over this same time period by over $90 billion, from $163 billion to $257 billion,” the GAO said.

In the past few fiscal years, DOE environmental management has spent about $6 billion per year. The budget request submitted to Congress by President Donald Trump in May asked for $6.5 billion for the DOE Office of Environmental Management, the largest request in a decade.

Oak Ridge has a DOE environmental management program. It received more than $400 million in funding per fiscal year between 2013 and 2016. The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management has major cleanup projects at the East Tennessee Technology Park (the former K-25 site), Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Y-12 National Security Complex. Cleanup work depends upon funding, but it could continue into the mid-2040s. Although they might be in various stages, projects that are under way now include finishing demolition work at ETTP by 2020, disposing of uranium-233 at ORNL, addressing high-risk excess facilities at ORNL and Y-12, building a Mercury Treatment Facility at Y-12, and shipping transuranic waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. [Read more…]

DOE disposing of uranium-233 waste stored at ORNL

Posted at 7:55 pm August 27, 2017
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

During training, workers removed a type of shipping cask that was expected to be used to transport 403 canisters of uranium-tainted waste from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Nevada National Security Site northwest of Las Vegas. (File photo courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Environmental Management)

This story was updated at 5 p.m. Aug. 30.

They haven’t agreed on a final budget number, but the Trump administration and the U.S. House and Senate have proposed spending between about $33 million and $52 million in the next fiscal year to continue disposing of uranium-233 waste materials that are stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in a building that is the oldest continuously operating nuclear facility in the U.S. Department of Energy complex.

The uranium-233, or U-233, waste is now stored in secure vaults in Building 3019, which was built in the 1940s at ORNL. Removing the waste could allow ORNL to relax its overall security posture, which will reduce costs, eliminate nuclear safety issues, and make the campus more conducive to collaborative science, according to a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee report published in July.

Some of the waste is from a 1960s research and development test in New York, and it is being shipped to the Nevada National Security Site, a former nuclear weapons proving ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. In interviews this summer, DOE officials in Oak Ridge declined to discuss the amount of that waste that has been shipped to Nevada or to say how long the shipments might continue. But they are making progress, said Jay Mullis, acting manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management.

Once all of those materials are shipped, the remaining U-233 at ORNL will be treated in “hot cell” facilities across the street from Building 3019, at Building 2026. The DOE’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management owns both buildings.

Mullis said there is other U-233 waste stored in Building 3019, including from glovebox research at ORNL, from reactor plates, and from conglomerate materials. [Read more…]

NNSA awards, then rescinds contract to manage, operate Nevada National Security Site

Posted at 12:26 pm September 6, 2016
By Oak Ridge Today Staff Leave a Comment

The National Nuclear Security Administration awarded but then rescinded a contract to manage and operate the Nevada National Security Site, where some waste from Oak Ridge is shipped.

The NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy, awarded the contract to manage and operate the Nevada National Security Site, or NNSS, to Nevada Site Science Support and Technologies Corporation, or NVS3T, on August 26, a statement said. The winning proposal identified NVS3T as a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.

In making the award, NNSA evaluated past performance and other factors based upon the proposal as submitted, the statement said. The award was valued at $5 billion over 10 years if all options were exercised.

But after the award was made, DOE and NNSA learned that Leidos Innovations Corporation had acquired NVS3T from Lockheed Martin. [Read more…]

Nevada, feds agree to discuss landfill concerns, including ORNL radioactive waste

Posted at 1:54 pm December 29, 2014
By John Huotari Leave a Comment

Workers train to remove a type of shipping cask that would be used to transport 403 canisters of uranium-tainted waste from Oak Ridge National Laboratory to Nevada National Security Site northwest of Las Vegas. (Photos courtesy U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Environmental Management)

A new group of state and federal workers that was announced Tuesday could discuss contentious waste-related issues that include concerns over shipping low-level radioactive waste from a World War II-era building in Oak Ridge to a federal landfill in Nevada.

The new group, which will include senior-level state and federal employees, was announced in a six-page agreement, a memorandum of understanding signed last week by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval.

The talks started more than a year ago, after Sandoval sent a letter to Moniz expressing concerns over the proposed disposal of the radioactive waste at the Nevada National Security Site, a former nuclear weapons proving ground about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

At left is an actual 24-inch steel canister. At right is a representation of the canister interior.

The waste contains radioisotopes of uranium from the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Project. It originated from a 1960s research and development test of thorium and uranium reactor fuel in New York. It is stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Building 3019—the oldest continuously operating nuclear facility in the Department of Energy complex—in 403 ceramic-like uranium oxide monoliths. Each of the monoliths is bonded to the inside of a steel canister about 3.5 inches in diameter and about two feet long. [Read more…]

DOE works with transuranic waste while NM facility shut down

Posted at 2:13 pm December 27, 2014
By Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board Leave a Comment

The TRU Waste Processing Center southwest of Oak Ridge National Laboratory off State Route 95 is pictured above. (Photo courtesy TWPC/WAI)

A worker manipulates RH waste at the TRU Waste Processing Center. (Photo courtesy Oak Ridge Site Specific Advisory Board)

In February 2014, two incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or WIPP, in New Mexico caused the shutdown of the only facility in the U.S. that permanently disposes of transuranic waste, or TRU waste. That waste is disposed in shafts, or drifts, about a half-mile below ground in an ancient salt bed. Some of that waste has come from Oak Ridge.

After months of investigations into the cause of a truck fire and a radiological release two weeks later, the U.S. Department of Energy released a recovery plan at the end of September that outlines the steps necessary to resume limited waste operations in the first quarter of 2016.

“Key elements of the recovery plan include strengthening safety programs, regulatory compliance, decontamination of the underground, increasing ventilation, mine stability and underground habitability, and additional workforce retraining,” according to a statement on WIPP’s website. [Read more…]

Fuels for the final frontier: Y-12 to help create fuel for NASA space exploration

Posted at 3:55 pm December 8, 2014
By Y-12 National Security Complex Leave a Comment

Y-12 Development's Roland Seals and NASA and DOE Officials

Y-12 Development’s Roland Seals explains Y‑12’s infrared heating capabilities to NASA and DOE Office of Nuclear Energy officials. (Photo by Brett Pate)

The Y-12 National Security Complex is taking their uranium expertise to the next level—outer space.

The NNSA Production Office (NPO) at Y-12 struck an agreement earlier this year with NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, to support the design of a small nuclear-powered reactor with the potential to lead to small fission power reactors for future space exploration missions.

For the first phase of the project, Y-12 will research materials and manufacturing processes for a physics demonstration of a kilowatt-range nuclear reactor, known as project Kilopower, using an enriched uranium-molybdenum metallic fuel core and a lithium-hydride shield. The Kilopower concept was a 2013 R&D 100 Award winner for proof-of-principle experiments performed at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center in Nevada led by Los Alamos National Laboratory in collaboration with NASA Glenn and National Security Technologies.

“Science missions are seeking greater power and functionality,” explained Lee Mason, chief of the Thermal Energy Conversion Branch at Glenn. “We’re planning to demonstrate the technology in a ground test using a prototype U-235 reactor core.” [Read more…]

NNSA marks 10th anniversary of Global Threat Reduction Initiative

Posted at 12:54 am May 31, 2014
By National Nuclear Security Administration Leave a Comment

Frank Klotz

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The National Nuclear Security Administration on Thursday marked the 10th anniversary of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, GTRI. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, reducing the threat of terrorist acquisition of nuclear or radiological material has been a core mission of NNSA, and it is a mission that will continue into the future.

“The Global Threat Reduction Initiative’s history demonstrates how seriously we take this mission and our commitment to fulfilling President Obama’s nuclear security agenda,” said U.S. Department of Energy Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator Frank G. Klotz. “However, the threat to national and global security from state or terrorist acquisition of nuclear and radiological materials is far from gone, and our focus now is on addressing the substantial threats that remain.”

GTRI, an NNSA nuclear nonproliferation program, works with partners around the world to reduce and consolidate global stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, and plutonium, and to secure dangerous radiological sources both at home and abroad. GTRI and its predecessor programs have removed and secured more than enough material for 980 nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of radiological dirty bombs by converting HEU research reactors and isotope production facilities to the use of low enriched uranium, or LEU; removing or confirming disposition of HEU and plutonium; and securing nuclear and radiological sites around the world. [Read more…]