The Department of Energy is bringing the HB Line facility at the Savannah River Site back on line to recycle surplus plutonium and produce uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for advanced reactors.

Restarting the facility will be a multiyear process and will yield opportunities for increased domestic production of isotopes with scientific and commercial value. The DOE said that once operational, the HB Line will accelerate the Office of Environmental Management’s plutonium disposition mission by 10 to 13 years while reducing the existing cost.

The Department of Energy has announced that workers at its Savannah River Site in South Carolina recently removed legacy uranium materials from the site’s HB Line as part of an effort to clear the facility of its inventory of legacy nuclear materials. The removed legacy uranium was originally produced by the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The HB Line facility at SRS is located on top of the H Canyon chemical separations facility.

The HB Line facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina was recently placed in a reversible safe shutdown status, the DOE announced on June 24. The shutdown will save about $40 million a year starting in 2021, compared to 2016, when the facility’s plutonium feedstock operation was at its peak.