Safety of Idaho National Laboratory reactor questioned

JACKSON, Wyo. – A watchdog group in Wyoming is questioning the U.S. Department of Energy’s plan to produce plutonium-238 at the Idaho National Laboratory, saying it has found safety concerns in documents it has obtained.

Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free got the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request filed after DOE officials announced plans last June to build a new plutonium production plant at INL.

“The more we’ve examined this plutonium production project, the more we’ve learned about the Advanced Test Reactor,” Tom Patricelli, president of KYNF, told the Jackson Hole News.

INL, an 890-square-mile Energy Department complex headquartered in Idaho Falls, has one of the largest advanced reactors in the country. The lab is about 100 miles west of Jackson, and upwind of Yellowstone National Park.

DOE officials want to move all plutonium-238 production to the Idaho reactor, where about 5 kilograms a year would be produced. Plutonium-238 is used to generate power, sometimes as batteries in satellites, but a minute amount can cause cancer.

To produce the material, a new plant for purification and encapsulation processes would have to be built at INL. Those functions are now done at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.

Officials with KYNF oppose the consolidation plan and have questioned the safety of basing a new program on the 40-year-old Idaho reactor.

The group has said DOE should build a new reactor, but DOE officials say that would cost too much.

“We have performed a number of upgrades to the reactor and its support systems in recent years, as well as the core internal change-out process, which essentially results in a new reactor core every eight to 10 years,” said Brad Bugger, a DOE spokesman.

Patricelli said a consultant’s report about the information KYNF obtained said some of the concrete walls at the facility might not withstand an earthquake. The consultant also said the fire protection system, designed to prevent a reactor meltdown, could be damaged in an earthquake because the system’s piping is not supported by reinforced concrete walls.

The group also said it had concerns about mechanical failures of control rods in the reactor, dependability of a radiation monitoring system, and a lack of spare parts to fix older systems.

Bugger said he would follow up on those concerns.