Oak Ridge Slow to Secure Stock of Uranium-233

On Monday, the Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General (IG) released a report on why it has been taking so long for DOE to secure the stock of Uranium-233 (U-233) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The stock of U-233, a highly radioactive isotope with dangerous properties, still sits in a "deteriorating" ORNL facility even though DOE began planning to dispose of the material back in 2001.

As some of you may recall, POGO actually has some pretty direct experience with this material. During a 2005 site visit, POGO investigators were able to park in front of the ORNL building that held the 1,000 cans of U-233 and walk around for about 15 minutes before guards finally approached them and escorted them from the area. We determined that ORNL was the most vulnerable site in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

Fast forward five years: the IG now finds that despite an “expenditure of about $36 million, project planning and design had yet to be completed” to safely and securely dispose of the material.

While the report highlights inadequate contractor oversight and ongoing performance and monitoring problems, the most troubling aspect is that it reflects a disturbing set of priorities at DOE. As the President’s FY 2011 budget for DOE construction projects shoots through the roof like a large-bore powder gun at Los Alamos, the funds decrease for nuclear safeguards and security, defense nuclear security, and downblending of the dangerous highly enriched uranium into low enriched uranium.

-- Ingrid Drake

[Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/driek/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

Comments

[John Snyder]

On April 29, 2010, John Eschenberg, Assistant Manager for Environmental Management at DOE's Oak Ridge Office told the Energy, Technology, and Environmental Business Association of Tennessee that the Completion Date for the U-233 Disposition Project (Building 3019) is 2021 - another 10+ years from now. I have asked the current DNFS Board whether this additional delay is acceptable in fulfilling the intent of DNFSB Recommendation 97-1.

If the delay - and the estimated half a billion dollar cost - are not acceptable to you, consider supporting the effort to terminate the U-233 disposition project at ORNL and promptly transfer the U-233 to safe, secure, interim storage at another DOE site (see links below).

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/munger/2010/08/campaign_to_save_the_u-233_sto.html
http://energyfromthorium.com/