Removal Of Highly Enriched Uranium From The United Kingdom To The United States

In 2018, the United States (U.S.) and the United Kingdom (UK) successfully completed a multi-year effort to remove almost 700 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from the Dounreay site in Scotland to the United States. This extensive collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration’s (DOE/NNSA) Office of Material Management and Minimization, the Y-12 National Security Complex, the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), and Dounreay Site Restoration Limited contributed to a global nuclear security initiative that aims to reduce the amount of HEU in circulation while also facilitating the supply of material needed for medical isotopes and research reactor fuel, per the terms of the 2014 Memorandum of Understanding between DOE/NNSA and the Euratom Supply Agency. Beginning in 2015, U.S. and UK stakeholders worked together to identify HEU located at the Dounreay site that could be transported to the United States and subsequently downblended to low enriched uranium fuel for commercial power reactors. From 2016 to 2018, technical experts from Y-12 and Dounreay repackaged the material of various forms and enrichments and worked with an extensive group of U.S. and UK stakeholders to execute the safe and secure transport of this material to the United States using multiple shipments. This paper describes the preparation and the execution of this cooperative effort.