The Department of Energy's Inspector General this week released an audit report critical of the agency's management of the uranium-233 down-blending and disposition project in Oak Ridge. The report cited the project's growing cost and continuing uncertainties.
The project, which is still in the design phase, is supposed to process about 1.4 metric tons of uranium stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The uranium stockpile contains significant quantities of fissionable U-233 - a strategic nuclear material - with highly radioactive decay products that make the project complex and potentially dangerous. The current cost estimate is about $477 million.
The IG's findings are not too dissimilar from some of those outlined recently by John Eschenberg, DOE's new environmental management chief in Oak Ridge. The biggest difference is that Eschenberg blamed many of the problems on the contractor, Isotek, while the IG report tends to criticize DOE's Environmental Management program folks for letting the situation get in the shape that it's in.
"Problems with Federal leadership of the project, at least in part, contributed to delays in completing design and establishing a viable cost baseline," the audit report said. "For example, after the direction to abandon thorium-229 extraction, EM had not ensured that the contract with Isotek was consistent with the new scope of work, a situation that impacted its ability to hold the contractor accountable. Further, since taking over the project in 2005, EM had assigned 5 different Federal project directors with 4 different managers involved in the first 22 months of the project. The frequency of change in leadership contributed to EM not providing a timely review of the contractor's preliminary design."
n For the first time in three years, ORNL's High Flux Isotope Reactor did not start up on time following refueling and maintenance.
Friday's restart was two days later than scheduled because of an error found in a computer code used for safety analyses.
Ron Crone, the research reactors chief at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said an error was found in a one of the four computer codes used to assess safety issues related to reactor's thermal hydraulics. The code was scheduled to be updated by June, but DOE regulations required that the error be fixed immediately, he said.
"It was a very minor error, but honestly in our culture we take these things very conservatively," Crone said. "We were very certain from the time we found the error that this would not be an impact. But there is a process to follow."
The 85-megawatt research reactor had been shut down since Jan. 30 for maintenance and refueling, and Crone said the code error was discovered during the outage.
Scientists who use the High Flux Isotope Reactor for experiments were notified of the problem, and Crone said the impact was "minimal." However, it was the first time in three years - since a Cold Source was installed to enhance the research capabilities - that the reactor failed to start up on its scheduled date, he said.
"Everybody was somewhat disappointed," he said.
Some reactor employees were added to the weekend shift to assist those working on neutron-scattering experiments, and a few ORNL researchers reportedly adjusted their schedules to let visiting scientists - some of whom scheduled their visits to Oak Ridge months in advance - have priority on the research instruments.
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