Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Fernald Feed Materials Production Center
The Fernald Feed Materials Production Center (commonly referred to simply as Fernald) is a Superfund site located within Crosby Township in Hamilton County, Ohio, and Ross Township in Butler County, Ohio, in the United States. The plant was located near the rural town of Fernald, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, and occupied 1,050 acres (420 ha).
Fernald was a facility which refined uranium for the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex from 1951 to 1989. During that time, the plant produced 170,000 metric tons of metal products and 35,000 metric tons of compounds, such as uranium trioxide and uranium tetrafluoride. Annual production rates ranged from a high in 1960 of 10,000 metric tons to a low in 1975 of 1,230 metric tons. Refining uranium metal required chemical and metallurgical processes that occurred in nine specialized plants at the site.
Fernald came under criticism in 1984 when it was learned that the plant was releasing millions of pounds of uranium dust into the atmosphere, causing radioactive contamination of the surrounding areas. It was listed as a Superfund site in 1989. Cleanup of the surface areas was completed in October 2006, and the site became the Fernald Preserve in 2007.
On 1 January 1947, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) assumed responsibility for the research and production facilities the Army's Manhattan Project had created during World War II to make the first atomic bombs. The AEC's gaseous diffusion plants at Oak Ridge produced enriched uranium and its production reactors at the Hanford Site irradiated uranium to breed plutonium for nuclear weapons.
During the war, the Manhattan Project feed materials program had employed different companies in widely separated cities to produce the feed materials for the production processes. In the early post-war period, the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis turned uranium ore into uranium dioxide (UO2, known as "brown oxide"); the Harshaw Chemical Company in Cleveland turned brown oxide into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4, known as "green salt") and uranium hexafluoride (UF6); and Union Carbide's Electro-Metallurgical Division plant in Niagara Falls, New York, turned green salt into uranium metal. The AEC also operated storage facilities in Cleveland and at the Middlesex Sampling Plant in Middlesex, New Jersey.
In 1949, the AEC commissioners gave some thought to consolidating these feed materials facilities. Aside from the practical issues of moving material about the country, there were security concerns that the Union Carbide plant was too close to the Atlantic Ocean and the border with Canada. The Mallinckrodt facility in St. Louis was better situated from a security point of view, but there were already many defense plants in the vicinity, and too many could make an inviting target for enemy bombers. There were similar concerns about Hanford and Oak Ridge, but the AEC decided to proceed with expansion of their facilities. However, when Mallinckrodt opened a new plant in 1949, the AEC decided to cease using the Niagara Falls plant to produce uranium metal.
In response to the Soviet Union's detonation of an atomic bomb on 29 August 1949, and the outbreak of war in Korea on 25 June 1950, the AEC embarked on a major expansion program. New facilities included a lithium-6 enrichment plant at Oak Ridge; gaseous diffusion plants at Oak Ridge, Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio; weapons component plants at Rocky Flats and Amarillo; two "Jumbo" production reactors at the Hanford Site; and five new production reactors at Savannah River Site. To relieve the burden of increased production on Mallinckrodt, and aware that its aging facilities might become less efficient and more unhealthy in the future, Walter J. Williams, the AEC's Director of Production, revived the idea of a consolidated feed materials plant. In October 1950, he authorized the AEC's New York Operations Office to design a new feed materials plant that would carry out all phases of uranium processing work. The new plant was to be up and running by 1 January 1953.
The New York Operations Office delegated the task of finding a suitable location for the new feed materials plant to the Catalytic Construction Company, its engineering contractor. A series of selection criteria was drawn up. At least 1 square mile (640 acres; 260 ha) of flat land was required, preferably already owned by the government, serviced by good road and rail connections. The plant needed 30,000 kW of electric power and a stream with a flow of at least 500 cubic feet per second (14 m3/s) to remove effluent. Ideally, the local area would have sufficient skilled tradesmen to avoid having to build a camp for the construction workers and sufficient accommodation to avoid having to build a new housing development for the plant workers. The preferred zone was the Ohio valley and the southeastern states.
Hub AI
Fernald Feed Materials Production Center AI simulator
(@Fernald Feed Materials Production Center_simulator)
Fernald Feed Materials Production Center
The Fernald Feed Materials Production Center (commonly referred to simply as Fernald) is a Superfund site located within Crosby Township in Hamilton County, Ohio, and Ross Township in Butler County, Ohio, in the United States. The plant was located near the rural town of Fernald, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Cincinnati, Ohio, and occupied 1,050 acres (420 ha).
Fernald was a facility which refined uranium for the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex from 1951 to 1989. During that time, the plant produced 170,000 metric tons of metal products and 35,000 metric tons of compounds, such as uranium trioxide and uranium tetrafluoride. Annual production rates ranged from a high in 1960 of 10,000 metric tons to a low in 1975 of 1,230 metric tons. Refining uranium metal required chemical and metallurgical processes that occurred in nine specialized plants at the site.
Fernald came under criticism in 1984 when it was learned that the plant was releasing millions of pounds of uranium dust into the atmosphere, causing radioactive contamination of the surrounding areas. It was listed as a Superfund site in 1989. Cleanup of the surface areas was completed in October 2006, and the site became the Fernald Preserve in 2007.
On 1 January 1947, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) assumed responsibility for the research and production facilities the Army's Manhattan Project had created during World War II to make the first atomic bombs. The AEC's gaseous diffusion plants at Oak Ridge produced enriched uranium and its production reactors at the Hanford Site irradiated uranium to breed plutonium for nuclear weapons.
During the war, the Manhattan Project feed materials program had employed different companies in widely separated cities to produce the feed materials for the production processes. In the early post-war period, the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works in St. Louis turned uranium ore into uranium dioxide (UO2, known as "brown oxide"); the Harshaw Chemical Company in Cleveland turned brown oxide into uranium tetrafluoride (UF4, known as "green salt") and uranium hexafluoride (UF6); and Union Carbide's Electro-Metallurgical Division plant in Niagara Falls, New York, turned green salt into uranium metal. The AEC also operated storage facilities in Cleveland and at the Middlesex Sampling Plant in Middlesex, New Jersey.
In 1949, the AEC commissioners gave some thought to consolidating these feed materials facilities. Aside from the practical issues of moving material about the country, there were security concerns that the Union Carbide plant was too close to the Atlantic Ocean and the border with Canada. The Mallinckrodt facility in St. Louis was better situated from a security point of view, but there were already many defense plants in the vicinity, and too many could make an inviting target for enemy bombers. There were similar concerns about Hanford and Oak Ridge, but the AEC decided to proceed with expansion of their facilities. However, when Mallinckrodt opened a new plant in 1949, the AEC decided to cease using the Niagara Falls plant to produce uranium metal.
In response to the Soviet Union's detonation of an atomic bomb on 29 August 1949, and the outbreak of war in Korea on 25 June 1950, the AEC embarked on a major expansion program. New facilities included a lithium-6 enrichment plant at Oak Ridge; gaseous diffusion plants at Oak Ridge, Paducah, Kentucky and Portsmouth, Ohio; weapons component plants at Rocky Flats and Amarillo; two "Jumbo" production reactors at the Hanford Site; and five new production reactors at Savannah River Site. To relieve the burden of increased production on Mallinckrodt, and aware that its aging facilities might become less efficient and more unhealthy in the future, Walter J. Williams, the AEC's Director of Production, revived the idea of a consolidated feed materials plant. In October 1950, he authorized the AEC's New York Operations Office to design a new feed materials plant that would carry out all phases of uranium processing work. The new plant was to be up and running by 1 January 1953.
The New York Operations Office delegated the task of finding a suitable location for the new feed materials plant to the Catalytic Construction Company, its engineering contractor. A series of selection criteria was drawn up. At least 1 square mile (640 acres; 260 ha) of flat land was required, preferably already owned by the government, serviced by good road and rail connections. The plant needed 30,000 kW of electric power and a stream with a flow of at least 500 cubic feet per second (14 m3/s) to remove effluent. Ideally, the local area would have sufficient skilled tradesmen to avoid having to build a camp for the construction workers and sufficient accommodation to avoid having to build a new housing development for the plant workers. The preferred zone was the Ohio valley and the southeastern states.