SRS’s plutonium storage plans originally called for the construction of a  state-of-the-art Actinide Packaging and Storage Facility that would have  provided long-term storage and monitoring of standard plutonium  containers in a secure environment. SRS further  estimated that it could save more than $120 million by not using Building  235-F for storage and therefore decided in April 2005 to consolidate  plutonium storage in Building 105-K.

	DOE Cannot Currently Consolidate Its Plutonium at SRS

DOE cannot consolidate its excess plutonium at SRS for several reasons. First, DOE has not completed a plan to process the plutonium into a form  for permanent disposition, as required by the National Defense  Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002. Second, even if a plan to process this plutonium for permanent disposition  had been developed and DOE were able to ship the plutonium, SRS would  still be unable to accommodate some of Hanford’s plutonium because  Hanford’s accelerated cleanup plans and SRS’s storage plans are  inconsistent with one another. Hanford stores nearly one-fifth of its plutonium in the form of 12-foot-long  nuclear fuel rods, with the remainder in about 2,300 DOE standard 5-inch- wide, 10-inch-long storage containers. Hanford was preparing to ship plutonium to SRS as part of its efforts to  accelerate the cleanup and demolition of its closed nuclear facilities. Hanford and SRS currently lack the  capability to disassemble the fuel rods, but DOE plans to study  establishing that capability at SRS as part of its conceptual design of a  facility to process the plutonium for disposition. The challenges DOE faces storing its plutonium stem from the  department’s failure to adequately plan for plutonium consolidation. Until DOE is able to develop a permanent  disposition plan, additional plutonium cannot be shipped to SRS, and DOE  will not achieve the cost savings and security improvements that  plutonium consolidation could offer. However, according to Hanford officials, continued storage at Hanford  could cost approximately $85 million more annually because of increasing  security requirements and will threaten the achievement of the goals in the  site’s accelerated cleanup plan. DOE Cannot Currently Fully Monitor the Condition of Stored Plutonium

Under DOE’s plutonium storage standard, storage containers must be  periodically monitored to ensure continued safe storage. Without a  monitoring capability that can detect whether storage containers are at  risk of rupturing, there is an increased risk of an accidental plutonium  release that could harm workers, the public, and the environment. Because Building 105-K does not have the capability to monitor storage  containers, DOE had planned to install monitoring equipment in Building  235-F at SRS. In addition, Building 235-F faced several other challenges that would have  affected its ability to monitor plutonium. Because of changes in the design  basis threat, Building 235-F would not have had sufficient security to store  Category I quantities of plutonium.
Why GAO Did This Study

Plutonium is very hazardous to human health and the environment and requires extensive security because of its potential use in a nuclear weapon. The Department of Energy (DOE) stores about 50 metric tons of plutonium that is no longer needed by the United States for nuclear weapons. Some of this plutonium is in the form of contaminated metal, oxides, solutions, and residues remaining from the nuclear weapons production process. To improve security and reduce storage costs, DOE plans to establish enough storage capacity at its Savannah River Site (SRS) in the event it decides to consolidate its plutonium there until it can be permanently disposed of. GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent to which DOE can consolidate this plutonium at SRS and (2) SRS's capacity to monitor plutonium storage containers.

What GAO Found

As GAO reported in July 2005, DOE cannot yet consolidate its surplus plutonium at SRS for several reasons. First, DOE has not completed a plan to process the plutonium into a form for permanent disposition, as required by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002. Without such a plan, DOE cannot ship additional plutonium to SRS. Second, SRS cannot receive all of the plutonium from DOE's Hanford Site because it is not in a form SRS planned to store. Specifically, about 20 percent of Hanford's plutonium is in the form of 12-foot-long nuclear fuel rods, which Hanford had planned to ship intact to SRS as part of its efforts to cleanup and demolish its closed nuclear facilities. However, SRS's storage plan assumed Hanford would package all of its plutonium in DOE's standard storage containers. Until a permanent disposition plan is developed, more plutonium cannot be shipped to SRS and DOE will not achieve the cost savings and security improvements that consolidation could offer. In particular, continued storage at Hanford will cost approximately $85 million more annually because of increasing security requirements and will threaten that site's achievement of the milestones in its accelerated cleanup plan. In addition, DOE lacks the necessary capability to fully monitor the condition of the plutonium to ensure continued safe storage. The facility at SRS that DOE plans to use to store plutonium lacks adequate safety systems to conduct monitoring of storage containers. Without a monitoring capability, DOE faces increased risks of an accidental plutonium release that could harm workers, the public, and the environment. DOE had planned to construct a monitoring capability in another building at SRS that already had safety systems needed to work with plutonium. However, this building would not have had sufficient security to conduct all of the required monitoring activities. In addition, this building also has other serious safety problems. Faced with these challenges, DOE announced in April 2005 that it would have SRS's storage facility upgraded to conduct plutonium monitoring.