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Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

To reduce the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is engaged in a program to disposition U.S. surplus, weapons-usable plutonium in a safe, secure, and environmentally sound manner, by converting such plutonium into proliferation-resistant forms that can never again be readily used in nuclear weapons.

Plutonium buttonThe Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SPD Supplemental EIS) will analyze the potential environmental impacts of alternatives to the disposition of approximately 7 metric tons (MT) of additional weapons-usable plutonium from pits ("pit plutonium"; a pit is the core of a nuclear weapon) that were declared surplus to national defense needs in 2007 and were not included in DOE's prior decisions and 6 MT of surplus, weapons-usable non-pit plutonium.

The SPD Supplemental EIS will analyze four alternative disposition pathways: disposition of both the non-pit and pit plutonium using the can-in-canister vitrification approach, involving small cans of material, which would be placed in a rack inside a Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) canister and surrounded with vitrified high-level radioactive waste at the Savannah River Site (SRS); disposition of non-pit plutonium via H-Canyon and DWPF at SRS; disposal of non-pit plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico; and fabrication of pit and some non-pit plutonium into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for use in domestic commercial nuclear power reactors.

The SPD Supplemental EIS also includes alternatives for providing a pit disassembly and conversion capability including a stand-alone facility in the F-Area at SRS or installing capability in existing facilities at one or more of the following locations: the Plutonium Facility (PF-4) in Technical Area 55 (TA-55) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), H Canyon/HB-Line at SRS, K-Area at SRS and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at SRS.  In addition, DOE has decided not to analyze an alternative, described in the 2010 Amended NOI, to construct a separate Plutonium Preparation (PuP) capability for non-pit plutonium because the necessary preparation activities are adequately encompassed within the other alternatives. 

The MOX fuel alternative is DOE’s preferred alternative for surplus plutonium disposition.  DOE’s preferred alternative for pit disassembly and the conversion of surplus plutonium metal to feed the MFFF, is to use some combination of facilities at TA-55 at LANL, K-Area at SRS, H‑Canyon/HB-Line at SRS and MFFF at SRS, rather than to construct a new stand-alone facility.  This would likely require the installation of additional equipment and other modifications to some of these facilities.  DOE’s preferred alternative for disposition of surplus plutonium that is not suitable for MOX fuel fabrication is disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a cooperating agency for the SPD Supplemental EIS. DOE and TVA have entered into an interagency agreement to evaluate the use of mixed oxide fuel in reactors at TVA's Browns Ferry and Sequoyah Nuclear Plants.  

 

RELEVANT DOCUMENTS

SCOPING MEETING MATERIALS:

FACT SHEETS:

POSTERS

CONTACT INFORMATION

To request information about this NEPA action or to be added to or removed from the SPD Supplemental EIS mailing list, please contact (providing your name and complete mailing address) spdsupplementaleis@saic.com or:

U.S. Mail: 

Sachiko McAlhany, NEPA Document Manager
SPD Supplemental EIS
U.S. Department of Energy
P.O. Box 2324
Germantown, MD  20874-2324

Toll-Free Voice Mail: 1-877-344-0513

Toll-Free Fax: 1-877-865-0277

For general information on the NNSA NEPA process, please contact: Ms. Mary Martin (NA-56), NNSA NEPA Compliance Officer, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20585, or telephone 202-586-9438. For general information about the DOE NEPA process, please contact: Ms. Carol Borgstrom, Director, Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance (GC-54), U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20585, telephone 202-586-4600, or leave a message at 1-800-472-2756. Additional information about the DOE NEPA process, an electronic archive of DOE NEPA documents, including those referenced in this announcement, and other NEPA resources are provided at http://energy.gov/nepa.