DECOMMISSIONING | PU REACTORS


Decommissioning plutonium reactors


Fast reactors were a key part of the post-war landscape and were developed to produce plutonium as part of the nuclear arms race. Multiple reactors were constructed across the world as part of weapons programmes. Today the nuclear business is working to decommission these historic sites.


Below: The Hanford B reactor


THE NUCLEAR ARMS RACE WHICH CHARACTERISED the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s resulted in the construction in both the USA and Russia of reactors specifically designed to produce plutonium. In the USA, nine graphite moderated reactors were built at the Hanford site near Richland in Washington State, and five heavy water reactors were built at the Savannah River Plant (SRP) in South Carolina. In Russia, eight uranium graphite production reactors were constructed – three at the Mining & Chemical Combine (MCC) in Zheleznogorsk (Krasnoyarsk) and five at the Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC) in Seversk. All these reactors have now been closed and are at various stages of decommissioning.


At Hanford, the B reactor, which began operation in


1944, was the world’s first production reactor. It was joined over the next decade by the D, F, DR, H, C, K west and K east reactors. These had all been closed down by 1970. In 1963 the ninth reactor, designated N, was built – the only US production reactor which also generated electricity. It operated until 1987. All but one of the Hanford plutonium production


reactors have now been entombed, or cocooned, to allow radioactive materials to decay over the next several decades. Surrounding structures have been removed and buried. This entailed removing hundreds of tonnes of asbestos, concrete, steel and contaminated soil. The


16 | WNE Special Edition | www.neimagazine.com


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