DOE Hanford Site - 100 K Area

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www.hanford.gov/information/sitetours/?tour=100K

K-East and K-West were built in 1955 and were shut down in 1970 and 1971. Even though the reactors are shut down, their fuel storage basins contain nearly 2,300 tons of spent reactor fuel. The fuel came from N Reactor operations during the 1970s and 1980s. The fuel was not processed in the usual manner because the PUREX (plutonium-uranium extraction) plant that normally dissolved and separated reactor fuel was shut down in 1972 because there was no need for additional plutonium.

Removing the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from the K Basins and safely storing it away from the Columbia River is one of the highest cleanup priorities at the Hanford Site. Managed by Fluor Hanford, this SNF Project designed and built hundreds of thousands of pounds of completely unique equipment, as well as two new facilities. Operations - or removal of the first load of fuel from the K-West Basin - began in December 2000. This was an extremely exciting event for the whole Hanford Site and the whole Northwest, because it meant that the SNF process works and that real SNF cleanup has begun.