Global Security Newswire

A top U.S. nuclear official said that issues of "pacing" should not prevent the United States from eventually replacing an aging highly enriched uranium processing center at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the Knoxville News Sentinel reported yesterday (see GSN, Aug. 13).

The Obama administration did not request funds to build the proposed Uranium Processing Facility in its fiscal 2010 budget request, instead opting to wait for a comprehensive nuclear strategy review due out later this year (see GSN, Aug. 27).

The Uranium Processing Center "is needed. We have to have it for the future," argued National Nuclear Security Administration chief Thomas D'Agostino. "Whatever future we have on nuclear security, we have to have a uranium processing capability for this nation. Whether the stockpile is one warhead or a thousand or 10,000, that's the policy-makers. The president's going to figure that out, and we're going to do that in the Nuclear Posture Review."

''Pacing is always a question. How fast can things come on board. And what's going to have to have get done is debated internally in the administration, and you can be sure it will be discussed. And there is a very strong interest in taking a look at where we are on nuclear issues. [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates, frankly, has been very clear, and [President Barack Obama] has been very clear about as long as we're going to have a nuclear stockpile, we're going to take care of it."

D'Agostino declined to prioritize the project above an NNSA plan to replace a nuclear-weapon research facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico (see GSN, May 19).

"I have a desire to get both of these facilities, whether they are done concurrently or one before the other." he said. "My ideal world would be to get them both done right away, as quickly as possible" (Frank Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel I, Aug. 27).

Meanwhile, the Y-12 complex is set next week to begin applying a new system for taking apart nuclear warhead components, federal spokesman Steven Wyatt told the News Sentinel.

"Infrared debonding" melts adhesive material in warhead components without harming the equipment, according to information released by Y-12.

The process could speed up one warhead disassembly initiative by five years, says a report by the site's operator. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board indicated in July that the technique would first be used in the dismantlement of W-70 warheads, but Wyatt declined to verify the statement.

"These weapons were never built to be taken apart very easily," said Paul Wasilko, head of the Y-12 Integrated Safety Management Program. "So when you take them apart, you have adhesives that are bonded that weren't meant to come apart. You want to take them apart so that maybe you can reuse the parts.

"You want to take them apart so that you don't break up the materials and make them airborne. So you could dissolve them, you could freeze them. There are lots of ways for breaking bonds. But this new way, the infrared, seems to be the (best) way of not damaging the parts," Wasilko added.

"Infrared is a way of applying heat rather than using a heat gun. It's infrared. Only the bond gets hot, not the whole part," he said (Frank Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel II, Aug. 27).