Reactor Fuel Return Programs

For more than 30 years, USEC’s subsidiary NAC International has performed a variety of operations to assist organizations and governments around the world with their nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Foreign Research Reactor Fuel Return Program

NAC has been the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) contractor for the supply of used nuclear fuel packaging and transportation services under the FRR program for Other Than High Income (OTHI) countries. NAC also performs returns from High Income countries.

Under this program, DOE is accepting the return of irradiated U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) and other fuels from research reactors around the world. DOE also assists the reactor owners in converting these reactors to use low enriched uranium fuel in place of the HEU, reducing the proliferation risk associated with possessing HEU. This program runs until May 2019.

NAC has returned fuel from more than 15 countries in North and South America, Europe and Asia since 1996.

Removal of HEU from University Research Reactors

Along similar lines, NAC is involved with the removal of HEU from research reactors at universities around the United States.

As an example, after the conversion of the research reactor at Texas A&M University to low enriched uranium fuel, NAC provided the shipping casks and fuel assembly baskets for transporting the irradiated HEU fuel assemblies from the university to DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. A team of NAC engineers provided technical guidance and support to university personnel for loading the cask and testing operations.

Irradiated Fuel Stabilization, Storage, Packaging and Shipments from Sensitive Locations

NAC has been involved in the removal, packaging and shipment of irradiated HEU, LEU and plutonium fuels from reactors in several sensitive geographic areas.

• Designed, fabricated and delivered specialized containers and equipment to clean canisterize and stabilize 8,000 used fuel rods from the research reactor in Nyongbyon, North Korea. NAC sealed the fuel in 400 specially designed containers that were then placed under long-term monitoring by the IAEA.
• Removal of spent fuel assemblies from destroyed research reactors in Iraq. The fuel assemblies were returned to Russia, their country of origin.
• Stabilization and transportation of several thousand fuel assemblies containing three tons of bomb-grade plutonium from a BN-350 fast breeder reactor in Kazakhstan.
• Removal of irradiated fuel from the nuclear research center in Tbilisi, Georgia and transport to the United Kingdom.