Richland Operations Office
Spent Nuclear Fuels

The Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) project supported the Hanford Site cleanup mission by safely moving spent nuclear fuel away from the Columbia River and into dry, interim storage in the middle of the Site.

The SNF project was formed specifically to address the urgent need to move spent fuel from degraded wet storage conditions in the 105 K East (KE) and the 105 K West (KW) Basins in the 100 K Area along the Columbia River Corridor. About 80% of the Department of Energy's (DOE) remaining spent nuclear fuel was stored in the K Basins when the project began. The project completed fuel removal from deficient storage conditions in the K Basins in October 2004, thus decreasing risks to humans and the environment.  The spent fuel was dried and placed in temporary storage in steel tubes below ground until a national geologic repository is available. At the completion of the SNF project, work to remove sludge, water and some of the debris from the K Basins was moved into a new project called the K Basins Closure (KBC) project.  The KBC project also is responsible for encasing the K Basins (with some of their debris) in special concrete called grout, removing the basins, and burying them as waste.

In addition to the spent fuel in the K Basins, approximately 30 metric tons of non-defense production reactor spent nuclear fuel has been stored at various locations at the Hanford Site. The SNF project consolidating most of this fuel in the middle of the Site for safe interim storage, and the turned over the remainder of the fuel consolidation work to the KBC project.

The Hanford SNF project had five major objectives:

• Remove and repackage the K Basins spent nuclear fuel into metal containers called multi-canister overpacks (MCOs) suitable for safe fuel handling and interim storage;  
• Dry the fuel to enable safe transport to interim storage
• Transport the dried fuel and place in safe, interim storage 
• Consolidate Hanford's non-defense spent nuclear fuel to safe, interim storage
• Weld the MCOs permanently closed with seals that meet the highest quality “N-Stamp” standards.

To accomplish these objectives, the SNF project built, operated and maintained the following major new facilities: the Canister Storage Building (CSB), the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility (CVDF), and the 200 Area Interim Storage Area (ISA).  (The Cold Vacuum Drying Facility was placed in standby just after the completion of fuel removal from the K Basins.)

Additionally, the project installed and operated several new systems within the K Basins, including the Fuel Retrieval System (FRS), the Fuel Transfer System (FTS),  and the Canister Cleaning System (CCS).  The project also procured and operated the MCOs and Cask/Transportation System.

SNF videos are available at the DOE Hanford Streaming Media Archive