Foreign plutonium secretly dumped and stranded at Savannah River Site – Why? In spite of their being no security concerns now that it’s at SRS, DOE/NNSA fumbles the issue and ain’t talking….
DOE has openly discussed receipt of Swedish plutonium at SRS. Why is DOE afraid to openly talk about plutonium from Canada, Belgium and Italy being brought this year to SRS? As there are now no security concerns about those transports, via a PNTL ship into Charleston, South Carolina, could it be that DOE and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) are embarrassed to discuss this as there is no disposition plan at all for this stranded material (not a part of the program to dispose of US weapons plutonium)? DOE/NNSA: What is the disposal plan for this foreign-origin plutonium and why was it brought to SRS? Is import of UK-origin plutonium now stored in Japan being considered for dumping at SRS? (It belongs in the UK…)
On the docks in October 2013: Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd. (PNTL) ships docked in Barrow-in-Furness, UK, south of the Sellafield nuclear site. Can we expect our old friend the Pacific Egret to attempt another “secret” plutonium run into Charleston? On the Pacific Heron, on the left, note the covered weapon to the left on the small deck just below the escape boat; you can almost see the cover over the barrel of the gun. Would such a weapon stop someone aiming to steal US-origin weapon-grade plutonium from Japan? Or, will that be done under US naval escort (lurking beyond the horizon)?
For information on the Swedish plutonium to SRS – see this document:
“REMOVAL OF LEGACY PLUTONIUM MATERIALS FROM SWEDEN”
SRNL-STI-2013-00487
Proceedings of the 17th International Symposium on the
Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials
PATRAM 2013
August 18-23, 2013, San Francisco, CA, USA
ABSTRACT
U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of
Global Threat Reduction (GTRI) recently removed legacy plutonium materials from Sweden in collaboration with AB SVAFO, Sweden. This paper details the activities undertaken through the U.S. receiving site (Savannah River Site (SRS)) to support the characterization, stabilization, packaging and removal of legacy plutonium materials from Sweden in 2012. This effort was undertaken as part of GTRI’s Gap Materials Program and culminated with the successful removal of plutonium from Sweden as announced at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. The removal and shipment of plutonium materials to the United States was the first of its kind under NNSA’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative. The Environmental Assessment for the U.S. receipt of gap plutonium material was approved in May 2010. Since then, the multi-year process yielded many first time accomplishments associated with plutonium packaging and transport activities including the application of the of DOE-STD-3013 stabilization requirements to treat plutonium materials outside the U.S., the development of an acceptance criteria for receipt of plutonium from a foreign country, the development and application of a versatile process flow sheet for the packaging of legacy plutonium materials, the identification of a plutonium container configuration, the first international certificate validation of the 9975 shipping package and the first intercontinental shipment using the 9975 shipping package. This paper will detail the technical considerations in developing the packaging process flow sheet, defining the key elements of the flow sheet and its implementation, determining the criteria used in the selection of the transport package, developing the technical basis for the package certificate amendment and the reviews with multiple licensing authorities and most importantly integrating the technical activities with the Swedish partners.