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DOE gives OK for conceptual design to begin on the CMR Replacement Project

A new facility to support chemistry and metallurgy research

The main focus of the new facility's design will be to ensure that Los Alamos can meet and grow with the requirements of its major client, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Defense Programs‹specifically pit production, and core and enhanced surveillance activities.

One of the problems with the nation¹s defense programs is a lack of trained personnel. DOE and NNSA officials and Los Alamos researchers hope that the new facility can be used to recruit and train actinide and nuclear workers to provide a pool of qualified candidates for defense activities throughout the DOE.

After a year of developing plans and defining the requirements needed in a new chemistry and metallurgy research facility, the Laboratory has been given the go-ahead to begin conceptual design of the facility.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in late July signed a memorandum for Critical Decision­Zero for the replacement of the 50-year-old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) Building, which has a planned end-of life on or around 2010. Abraham's signing of the initial Critical Decision­Zero also authorized the Department of Energy (DOE) to begin preparing an Environmental Impact Statement and to hold public meetings on the CMR Replacement (CMRR) Project.

The main focus of the new facility's design will be to ensure that Los Alamos can meet and grow with the requirements of its major client, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Defense Programs. The CMRR project will provide the space needed for the analytical chemistry, materials characterization, and actinide research and development capabilities currently housed in the existing CMR that support the nuclear programs defined for Los Alamos in the Stockpile Stewardship and Management­Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.

Research capabilities necessary for stockpile stewardship

The applied chemstry and metallurgical research performed at Los Alamos is crucial to the pit surveillance program, enhanced surveillance program, primary physics, and manufacturing projects. These projects require high-quality chemical and metallurgical analyses of a variety of plutonium metal and alloys to ascertain the effects of age, microstructure, and other potential variables on the stockpile.

Metallurgical research is performed using a wide variety of instrumentation, including electron microscopes, x-ray diffractometers, calorimeters, and a multitude of surface science equipment. The equipment used in the research and development activities in the CMR Building also acts as an enhancement to equipment and activities based at the TA-55 plutonium facility.

Moreover, the CMR facility houses key actinide science capabilities in analytical chemistry, processing and separations, solution chemistry, and spectroscopy. These capabilities support DOE programs in defense, nonproliferation and nuclear safeguards, counterprolif-eration, nuclear materials technologies, basic science, environmental stewardship, medical radioisotope, and technology development for waste treatment and minimization. The CMR facility also provides analytical reference standards for nationwide distribution.

The scale of studies could grow with a new facility. Because of the CMR operational limitations associated with the existing CMR aging, it has been downgraded to a Security Category 3 facility, which limits material compatibility studies. Certain areas of the new CMRR could be rated from "radiological facility"‹the ability to work with up to 8.4 grams of plutonium-239 equivalents‹to Security Category 1 and 2, where researchers can initiate more and larger-scale studies.

One of the current difficulties with supporting the nation's defense programs is a lack of trained personnel. DOE and NNSA officials and Los Alamos researchers hope that the new facility can be used to recruit and train actinide and nuclear workers to provide a pool of qualified candidates for defense activities throughout the DOE.

Integrated nuclear planning

The CMRR Project is integrated into the science-based stockpile stewardship program and site planning activities that are seeking relocation and consolidation of nuclear facilities at Los Alamos. This integrated nuclear planning activity is aimed at reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

Because the existing CMR and PF-4 aren't adjacent to each other and are not even located at the same site, operations are not as cost efficient as possible. Relocation of the CMRR special nuclear material facilities to the preferred site at TA-55 could potentially save up to tens of millions of dollars each year by sharing safeguards and security efforts, eliminating equipment redundancies for operations performed now at both CMR and TA-55, and even more simply, by becoming more efficient in moving samples between facilities.

The old CMR Building is the largest at Los Alamos, covering more than a half million square feet. The proposed CMRR will be much smaller-less than 250,000 square feet. The design currently preferred is a three-building option that includes a light laboratory/office building outside the security fence at TA-55, which has radiological labo

Several proposals are being considered for the old CMR Building. One of the alternatives being proposed in the CMRR Environmental Impact Statement is to decontaminate and decommission the entire CMR facility.

This article was contributed by Denise Sessions and Meredith Coonley (IM-1)


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