Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant

In August 1952, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) selected Scioto Township, a rural area occupied by family-owned farms, as the site for a new gaseous diffusion plant to produce highly enriched uranium, U-235, for use in military reactors and nuclear weapons production. Located near the junction of the Scioto and Ohio rivers, the site was chosen due to the economic availability of electric energy, availability of water for plant operation, adequate potential labor, suitable transportation facilities, geographic traits, and relative flatness of the topography.[3]

The project was given expedited priority. Due to this prioritization, construction of the site had to start before all the architectural drawings for the site were completed. The Oak Ridge operations of the AEC set up an organization designated “The Portsmouth Area” to direct construction and operation of the plant, select engineers, construction contractors, schedule delivery of critical materials, and any other contingency. Uniform agreements were set up between labor and management to minimize the number of stoppages. Early planning and organization took place in improvised offices in city buildings of Portsmouth, including the National Guard Armory, the Elks City Club, and the old farmhouses on the site itself. Nine architect engineer firms shared in the design of the plant, producing 12,000 design drawings, 40,000 construction drawings, and 16,000 shop drawings. Advanced planning and scheduling were extremely important because the plant was designed to go into operation, or “on stream,” as soon as each unit or segment in a process building was completed while construction continued in other parts of the building.

Groundbreaking for the plant was November 18, 1952. Earthmovers began leveling the rolling farmland for the building foundations on the same day. One hundred thousand short tons (91,000 t) of structural steel, 14,500 short tons (13,200 t) of reinforcing steel in the concrete floors, 600 miles (970 km) of process piping and 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of copper tubing were used in the construction of the three process buildings. An additional 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of tubing ran through the rest of the plant and into the control rooms. Five hundred thousand cubic yards (380,000 m³) of concrete were required to complete the project. To support this, a separate concrete batching plant was constructed on plant site to serve all contractors. It produced 200 cubic yards (150 m³) of concrete per hour. It took 70 million man hours for construction.

Two railroad lines, financing their own work, built spurs into the area to haul in building materials and heavy equipment including 22 miles (35 km) of track on site. Twenty-five miles (40 km) of roads were laid in the plant area as well as a seven-mile (11 km) perimeter road that encircles the plant.

The original estimate for construction was four years at a cost of $1.2 billion. Construction was carried out by Peter Kiewit and Sons of Nebraska at a cost of $750 million. The site was completed several months ahead of schedule at 34 percent below the original cost estimate at a $400 million savings.

Operations began in 1954 while construction was ongoing with the plant coming fully online in early 1956, several months ahead of schedule.

The primary mode of enrichment was the gaseous diffusion of uranium hexafluoride to separate the lighter fissile isotope, U-235, from the heavier non-fissile isotope, U-238. The plant initially produced material for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. In the mid-1960s, the plant converted to fuel production for commercial nuclear power plants. Portsmouth took material from Paducah that was enriched to 2.75% U-235 and further enriched it to approximately 4% and 5%.[4][5]

The Portsmouth plant had a capacity of 8.3 million separative work units per year (SWU/year) in 1984 in 4,080 stages. Three buildings, X-326, X-330 and X-333, housed gaseous diffusion equipment.[6] Three cooling tower complexes, X-626, X-630, and X-633, were used to remove process heat. Six hundred eighty-nine million US gal (2,610 million l) of water went through the 11 cooling towers daily, of which 20 million US gal (0.076 billion l) evaporated into the air. Water came from well fields installed at the Scioto River supplying 40 million gallons per day when operating at full capacity.

To support operations, the AEC entered into the largest contract for a single customer in the history of the electrical utility industry for power at that time. Power usage was equal to the all-time high voltage requirements in the United States, more than 2,000 megawatts - 18 billion kilowatt hours yearly. To handle the power requirements, two large switchyards were constructed on site. Two large steam electric generating stations were built to supply power at Clifty Creek in Madison, Indiana and Kyger Creek in Gallipolis, Ohio. At the time, they were the largest power plants built by private industry as well as the most efficient, producing 1 kilowatt hour of electricity for 0.7 pounds (0.32 kg) of coal. The power plants used 7.5 million short tons (6.8 million t) of coal annually to support operations.

In May 2001, USEC ceased uranium enrichment operations at the Piketon plant and consolidated operations in Paducah. The following year, transfer and shipping operations were also consolidated in Paducah.[2][3] Although USEC had nine years time and had received the funding, USEC ceased the Portsmouth enrichment cascade in a dirty power down, without purging the diffusion cells.[7] Geoffrey Sea wrote in September 2013 that USEC's demise will be either by creditors (by October 2014 loan repayment deadline), "regulators who find their spines", or by "repeal of the USEC Privatization Act by Congress."[8]

DUF6 Conversion facilities are located at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Paducah, KY and the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon, OH. Each facility consists of four buildings- a conversion building, an administration building, a warehouse and a KOH Regeneration building, as well as rail heads, five large acid storage tanks and lay-down areas for DUF6 steel cylinders. In 2002, DOE awarded Uranium Disposition Services, LLC (UDS) a contract to design, build and operate the DUF6 conversion plants to convert the DUF6 to uranium oxide and hydrofluoric acid. In December 2010, DOE awarded B&W Conversion Services, LLC (BWCS) a contract to operate the DUF6 Conversion Plants through March 2016. Babcock & Wilcox Conversion Services (BWCS) completed the transition of the contract for initial operations of the DUF6 Project in March 2011. Both plants are expected to be fully operational in fall 2011.[9][10]

USEC ceased enrichment operations at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in May 2001 after it consolidated operations at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. USEC began working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2000 to resume gas centrifuge enrichment operation activities, which DOE originally began developing in the early 1960s. During the 1980s, DOE had begun construction of a centrifuge enrichment plant at the Portsmouth site before abandoning the project in June 1985 after spending $3 billion. USEC sited its Lead Cascade Test Program at Piketon in late 2002. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed this demonstration facility in 2004. Lead Cascade operations using prototype machines commenced in August 2007.

In March 2010, USEC began operating a new test cascade of commercial-ready AC100 centrifuge machines. USEC has been demonstrating AC100 cascade operations since then. USEC's prototype and AC100 centrifuge machines have accumulated hundreds of thousands of hour of runtime since August 2007. Performance of the Lead Cascade has been confirmed under a variety of operating conditions with product assays consistent with industry standards for the production of commercial nuclear fuel for power reactors. The NRC licensed USEC to construct and operate the commercial American Centrifuge Plant at the Portsmouth site in April 2007, and construction began in May 2007. Construction was demobilized in August 2009 due to the delay in receiving a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. USEC currently awaits approval of this $2 billion loan guarantee before it can remobilize the construction, which will create nearly 8,000 jobs in the United States. Once completed, the commercial plant will use approximately 11,500 centrifuge machines to generate 3.8 million separative work units (SWU) a year.[2]

During its nearly 60 years of operations, the cleaning, maintenance, and change out of process equipment at the site generated spent solvents and other contaminants that were disposed of in onsite landfills and surface storage buildings. To date, contamination has been found in various locations on site including the process buildings, the former cooling towers, landfills, waste water ponds, and other buildings. There are also groundwater plumes from the landfills. The Ohio EPA is monitoring cleanup operations, pursuant to a 1989 consent decree.[11]

On June 27, 2005, the Department of Energy awarded a contract to LATA/Parallax Portsmouth, LLC (LPP). This was the first small business contract by DOE at the Portsmouth site. As part of the environmental remediation of the site, LPP removed 31 facilities; an 18-acre switchyard complex which included 160 towers, 18 large transformers, 10 synchronous condensers, 2 switch houses, 1 2-story control room and numerous other structures. LPP's contract was extended as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) stimulus project with their contract ending on March 29, 2011.

In 2008, a large project was completed to remove 7,640 short tons (6,930 t) of scrap material by shearing and disposing of 382 old process equipment converter shells. Between 2003 and 2010, more than 2.10 million cubic feet (59,500 m³) of legacy waste was removed from the site.

In September 2010, the DOE awarded the $1.2 billion follow up contract to Fluor-B&W Portsmouth LLC. Fluor-B&W transitioned the remaining LPP scope and workforce on March 29, 2010 and is currently working with USEC to transition remaining personnel and responsibilities for the site.

The site was evaluated for a potential nuclear power plant by a consortium including Areva, Duke Energy, USEC and UniStar Nuclear Energy, with no proposal as of 2011.[12]

The DOE, in partnership with the counties of Pike, Jackson, Ross, and Scioto and the D&D contractor, Fluor-B&W Portsmouth, are working on preparing the site for future use.

On January 7, 2019, US Senator from Ohio Rob Portman announced that the Trump Administration has earmarked $115 million to open the facility again, employing 60 people which would house a cascade of 16 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, subject to EPA final approval.[13]

On May 13, 2019, enriched uranium was detected inside the Zahn's Corner Middle School, in Piketon, Ohio, just two miles (3.2 km) from the plant. The U.S. Department of Energy air monitor adjacent to the middle school also detected neptunium 237 -- a byproduct of nuclear reactors and plutonium production. It was determined by leaders to close the school for the rest of the school year. Area businesses, homes, ground and groundwater were also undergoing further testing. [14] This event has resulted in a Class Action Lawsuit filed on behalf of area residents by a group of attorneys led by toxic tort specialist Stuart Smith.[15]

The site is briefly shown in the 2013 American action film, White House Down, directed by Roland Emmerich. Towards the climax of the film there is a scene in which terrorists hack into NORAD and launch a missile at Air Force One from the facility, killing everyone on board. [16]

• Nuclear fuel cycle
• Nuclear power
• Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
• Privatization
• United States Enrichment Corporation
• National Enrichment Facility

• Oak Ridge National Laboratory Gas Centrifuge Demonstration Program
• Security.org: Weapons of Mass Destruction-Gas Centrifuge Uranium Enrichment
• USEC Facilities: Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant

• Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at USEC
• Current Decommissioning & Decontamination Company at FBP
• Previous Environmental Remediation at LPP