Contractors cooperate to meet cleanup goals
The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) formally announced Thursday that it has met a major milestone for spent fuel storage.
The event actually happened on February 21, when workers removed eight spent fuel elements from the cooling canal at INL’s Advanced Test Reactor (ATR), packed them in a cask, and drove the container two miles to the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) for storage.
It was the first time in the test reactor’s 50-year history that spent fuel elements were transferred directly from the canal to longer-term dry storage, by-passing INTEC pools. That is a key tenet of the Department of Energy’s 1995 Settlement Agreement with the state of Idaho.
Under that agreement, the INTEC pools must be emptied by the end of 2023.
Sean O’Kelly, INL’s associate lab director ATR, credits the strong working relationship between Battelle Energy Alliance, which operates INL, and Fluor Idaho, which runs the Idaho Cleanup Project (ICP), for the achievement.
“We take our commitment to the state seriously and INL and ICP have been working diligently toward this goal for several years,” said O’Kelly.
The first shipments from ATR directly into dry storage will continue over the next few years. Dave Schoonen, ATR’s chief operating officer, expects to average 15 shipments per year over the next two years to keep up with ATR usage and to ensure ATR is prepared for some planned material upgrades scheduled for 2021.
“By completing 30 shipments over the next two years, we can ensure plenty of operating space in the ATR canal to support the needed 2021 upgrades,” said Schoonen.
