Department of Energy (DOE) has opened a new, dedicated storage facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for weapons-grade uranium. The $549m Highly Enriched Uranium Facility (HEUMF) measures 300ft by 475ft.
The company said that the facility is designed to protect weapon grade material as the building is reported to be able to withstand the impact of an commercial aircraft.
HEUMF will play a major role in helping the NNSA accomplish its full range of nuclear security missions, including protecting the nation’s inventory of highly enriched uranium (HEU), DOE said.
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy said: “The Highly Enriched Uranium Material Facility is essential to achieving the President’s vision. As we reduce our nuclear stockpile and improve security of nuclear material, we now have a modern facility capable of safely storing HEU until it can be down-blended.”
HEUMF was built to consolidate HEU from locations across the Y-12 National Security Complex into a facility that will reduce operating costs and is designed to address current and future nuclear threats.
In addition to being a facility for receiving, shipping and providing long-term storage, HEUMF is an integral part of NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino’s plan to move from a cold war-era nuclear weapons complex to a 21st century national security enterprise. It also is a key part of Y-12’s long-range modernization plan.
Now that construction of HEUMF has been completed, the Y-12 National Security Complex has begun consolidating HEU previously stored at multiple locations across the site into HEUMF.
Originally scheduled to take 13 months, Y-12 has adopted an accelerated plan to transfer much of the plant’s inventory of enriched uranium to the new high-security facility within 90 days which is expected to save about $26m in security costs.
The $549m building was completed in 2008 and began receiving material for storage at the end of January. HEUMF is a large (approximately 300ft by 475 ft) reinforced concrete structure that will provide storage capacity for thousands of containers of material to be held in specially designed storage racks.
Construction of HEUMF began in 2004. Approximately 91,000 cubic yards of concrete, 5,800 tons of rebar, and 1.5 million linear feet of wiring were used in its construction. HEUMF is one of two facilities whose joint mission will be to accomplish the storage and processing of all enriched uranium in one small, centralized area at Y-12. Design work on the second building, the Uranium Processing Facility, is underway.