As part of a $500 million program to dispose of Cold-War era waste stored at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, the Department of Energy plans to move material containing uranium-233, U-235 and U-232 to a facility in Nevada this year.
DOE officials recently told the Knoxville News Sentinel that permits among federal agencies required for the move are expected to be complete soon. While the exact dates of the shipment to the Nevada National Security Site were not announced for security reasons, they have been scheduled for early this year.
The waste, which poses radiological and proliferation challenges, comes from a uranyl nitrate solution processed into a ceramic-like material during the Consolidated Edison Uranium Solidification Project in the 1980s. The News Sentinel reported that DOE has 403 canisters containing about 2.6 kilograms each of uranium stored at Oak Ridge from that project.