Department of Energy FY 2012 Congressional ... - The FIRE Place

The Y-12 role includes the following activities:
• Manufacturing and assessing nuclear-weapon secondaries, cases, and other weapons components;
• Dismantling weapons secondaries returned from the stockpile;
• Providing safe and secure storage and management of special nuclear material;
• Supplying special nuclear material for use in naval reactors;
• Promoting international nuclear safety and nonproliferation;
• Reducing global dangers from weapons of mass destruction, and
• Supporting U.S. leadership in science and technology.
The modernization activities for Y-12 reflects consolidation of storage and manufacturing operations of
special nuclear material (SNM), footprint reduction, infrastructure revitalization, completion of the
Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) and construction of a new Uranium Processing
Facility (UPF). In addition, the Protected Area Reduction Project (PARP) will complete the high
security area perimeter and a future proposal, the Consolidated Manufacturing Complex (CMC) will
consolidate all non-enriched uranium manufacturing operations. The completion of both near-term and
long-term actions will enable:
• Reducing the site “footprint” by nearly 90 percent, thereby reducing the cost of security for special
nuclear materials;
• Consolidating manufacturing and processing operations to reduce the number of facilities square
footage required, improve workflow efficiencies, and facilitate reduction of high-security perimeter;
• Consolidating material storage operations to reduce the number of buildings, square footage, and
long-term maintenance operating cost;
• Consolidating administrative and technical operations into permanent and new facilities based on
functional, security, and workflow requirements, and
• Consolidating plant support operations into permanent new facilities to improve workflow efficiency
and reduce long-term maintenance, operation and security costs.
ACTIVITIES:
Directed Stockpile Work (DSW)
The DSW Y-12 activities include weapon secondary manufacturing, quality evaluation, disposition, and
case manufacturing. Y-12 supports increased emphasis on conducting surveillance of the existing
stockpile, predicting its life, performing refurbishments for the Life Extension Program (LEP),
dismantling weapons, and providing safe, secure management, and storage of the nation’s inventory of
Y-12 National Security Complex Page 537
FY 2012 Congressional Budget