Department of Energy March 28, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) intends to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of plutonium disposition capabilities that would be constructed and operated at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, South Carolina. DOE completed the Surplus Plutonium Disposition (SPD) EIS (DOE/EIS-0283) in November 1999, and on January 11, 2000, published a Record of Decision (ROD) in the Federal Register (65 FR 1608). DOE decided to dispose of approximately 17 metric tons of plutonium surplus to the nation's defense needs using an immobilization process and up to 33 metric tons by using the surplus plutonium as feedstock in the fabrication of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel to be irradiated in commercial reactors. DOE selected the SRS as the site for all surplus plutonium disposition facilities. Subsequently, DOE cancelled the immobilization portion of its disposition strategy due to budgetary constraints (ROD, 67 FR 19432, April 19, 2002). The selection of the SRS as the location for disposition facilities for up to 50 metric tons of surplus plutonium remains unchanged. Site preparation for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the SRS began in November 2005. The 2002 decision left DOE with about 13 metric tons of surplus plutonium that does not have a defined path to disposition (about 4 metric tons of the 17 metric tons originally considered for immobilization has been designated for programmatic use). DOE has been investigating alternative disposition technologies and will now prepare an SEIS for Surplus Plutonium Disposition at the SRS (DOE/EIS-0283-S2) to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of those alternatives. DOE's preferred alternative is to construct and operate a vitrification facility within an existing building at the SRS. This facility would immobilize plutonium within a lanthanide borosilicate glass inside stainless steel cans. The cans then would be placed within larger canisters to be filled with vitrified high-level radioactive waste in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) at the SRS. The canisters would be suitable for disposal in a geologic repository. DOE also would prepare some of the surplus plutonium for disposal by processing it in the H-Canyon at the SRS, then sending it to the high-level waste tanks and DWPF. DOE seeks to take this action to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation worldwide by disposing of surplus plutonium in the United States in a safe and environmentally sound manner. The preferred vitrification technology, along with processing in H-Canyon, would fulfill this need for disposition of surplus plutonium materials that are not planned for disposition via fabrication into MOX fuel.