Inside Iowa State
January 21, 2000
Reactor fuel shipped off campus
by Skip Derra
A cask containing fuel from Iowa
State's 10-kilowatt teaching nuclear reactor was shipped Jan.
7 to the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site in
South Carolina and received there by DOE representatives Jan.
8.
"This shipment contained all of the fuel that was in the reactor, specifically 304 aluminum-clad fuel plates," said Scott Wendt, manager of the reactor. "We refer to it as the 'core.'"
Wendt said the decommissioning of the reactor includes three phases -- site characterization, demolition and site release. The project currently is between the first and second phase. Duke Engineering & Services, Bolton, Mass., was awarded the contract for all three phases.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is reviewing the decommissioning plan. When the plan is approved, demolition will begin (likely this summer) and take about six to eight weeks, Wendt said.
"We want to wait for summer to help minimize traffic around the Nuclear Engineering lab," he said.
After decommissioning is completed, the NRC will review the work before releasing Iowa State from its license.
Iowa State's 150-ton teaching reactor was operable from November 1959 to May 1998. It was one of the first teaching reactors in the country to be operated by a university.
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