01/06/2022 |
Safety
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Nuclear Materials Management |
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Nuclear Materials Management at the Savannah River Site includes spent nuclear fuel (SNF) storage in the L Area Disassembly Basin; storage of plutonium and other special nuclear materials and plutonium downblend in the K Area Complex; and SNF processing in the H Canyon chemical separations facility. |
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H Canyon is the only operating, production-scale, radiologically-shielded chemical separations facility in the United States. |
Plutonium downblend operations began in the Site’s K Area in 2016, to help accelerate the removal of plutonium from South Carolina. Since that time, K Area has undergone an Optimization process to introduce efficiencies that will help plutonium downblend be completed even faster. This culminated in K Area glovebox operations (where downblending occurs) moving to 4-shift operations in 2021. |
The L Area Disassembly Basin receives fuel from both domestic and foreign research reactors. The fuel is unloaded and stored in the underwater basin until It is process in the H Canyon chemical separations facility. |
A dissolver is lowered into the H Canyon Chemical Separations Facility. H Canyon began running two dissolvers in 2021 for the first time in a decade, in order to increase spent nuclear fuel processing. | |
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