EM-University Collaboration Leads to Decommissioning of Experimental Reactor

COVE CREEK, Ark. – EM and the University of Arkansas collaborated to successfully complete the decommissioning of a 1960s-era nuclear reactor this month.

The Southwest Experimental Fast Oxide Reactor (SEFOR) was constructed in 1968 with funding from DOE’s predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission. The small nuclear test reactor operated until 1972, and its nuclear fuel and sodium coolant were removed two years later. The reactor was sold to the University of Arkansas in 1975 for calibration and testing of nuclear instrumentation and ceased operations in the early 1980s.

The university, in collaboration with EM, obtained federal funding to finish the SEFOR facility decommissioning. The decommissioning process began in 2009 with an EM grant to begin characterization and the deactivation and decommissioning (D&D) process.

“The Department, the university and contractor EnergySolutions all thought outside the box as part of this collaborative effort, enabling the project to be completed safely, within costs, and on schedule,” EM SEFOR Project Manager Melanie Pearson Hurley said.

EM continued to support the university by sending a cost estimation team from its Consolidated Business Center to help develop the D&D scope. D&D of the facility commenced in 2016 and was successfully completed this month on schedule and budget.

“We appreciate the commitment the Department of Energy made to fund the decommissioning of the SEFOR test reactor,” said Ken Robuck, president and CEO of EnergySolutions, which was contracted by the university to complete the decommissioning.

“I want to thank University of Arkansas officials for this joint effort to complete this project,” Robuck said. “Without their help to secure funding from the DOE, this project would not have been completed on schedule and within the budget allocated for the project.”

This final phase of the project, which began in 2017, involved dismantling all above-grade structures; cleanout and removal of all systems, structures, and components from below grade; and removal of the reactor and ancillary equipment. The reactor vessel, equipment, and waste were packaged and shipped to offsite disposal facilities.

The property is now void of all radioactive material and native grass seed has been planted there.

The 20-megwatt, sodium-cooled reactor near Fayetteville, Arkansas operated by plutonium oxide-uranium oxide fuel as an experiment to obtain data on large-scale commercial sodium-cooled reactors.