Hanford fuel being shipped to Idaho lab

RICHLAND – Nuclear fuel from the Fast Flux Test Facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is being shipped to Idaho to have the uranium extracted for possible reuse by commercial nuclear power plants.

That’s part of the work to shut down the research reactor at minimum cost, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Despite years of efforts by FFTF supporters, the federal government has been unable to find a cost-effective use for the research reactor.

The first of 11 planned shipments by truck to the Idaho National Laboratory, near Idaho Falls, began in October and the shipments are expected to be completed in May. Shipments are not made in bad weather.

Workers in recent months have been moving the sodium-bonded fuel into special casks for transport.

“The sodium-bonded fuel is the last remaining fuel at FFTF,” said Al Farabee, the Department of Energy’s FFTF federal project director.

The sodium-bonded fuel was a later design for use in the reactor, which operated from 1982 to 1992. Melted sodium was poured around the fuel pellets inside each fuel pin to conduct heat from plutonium and uranium. The sodium bonded the pellet to the cladding.

The reactor also had 375 fuel assemblies without sodium bonding. They have already been moved out of FFTF into storage on the sprawling Hanford site.

Unused and irradiated sodium-bonded fuel is being shipped to Idaho in steel and lead-shielded casks that are sealed airtight.

At the Idaho National Laboratory, the fuel will be stored inside the Hot Fuel Examination Facility until it is processed, beginning in fiscal year 2009, according to the Department of Energy. Processing is expected to take two years.

Uranium will be extracted from the fuel and cast into ingots, and will be stored until a customer is found, the DOE said.

At FFTF, all sodium used in the reactor’s cooling systems has been removed and is being stored onsite. The sodium, which includes radioactive contamination, is expected to be used as a caustic additive to help turn radioactive waste now stored in underground tanks at Hanford into a stable glass form.