Specialized cylinders stand in a cylinder yard at the Paducah Site. (Photo: DOE)
A milestone has been reached at the Department of Energy’s Paducah Site when work crews successfully fabricated valves from old equipment and installed them on 137 specialized cylinders. This action will enable future work crews to transform depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) stored inside the cylinders into depleted uranium oxide, a stable chemical form suitable for reuse, storage or disposal.
As part of its DUF6 conversion program, the DOE is shipping converted depleted uranium oxide to WCS for disposal.
The first major shipment of depleted uranium oxide for disposal departs the DOE’s Paducah Site in Kentucky in early 2023 for disposal at the WCS facility in Texas.
Last year in late August, 120 storage cylinders of depleted uranium oxide (DUOx) safely arrived by rail in West Texas, having been shipped from the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Ohio. It was the first such shipment of the stable crystalline powder from the Portsmouth Site and was another milestone in the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s (EM) efforts to ship DUOx for off-site disposal.
