Y-12 uranium facility delayed to 2030s, costs rise to $10B for national security priority (2025)

Workers at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge will have to wait several more years before moving uranium processing out of a crumbling Manhattan Project building to a new facility that will not be operational until 2031.

The Uranium Processing Facility, one of the largest construction projects in Tennessee history, will cost around $10.3 billion, and construction will not be complete until 2027, project manager Brian Zieroth said at a Knoxville business and tech conference on Oct. 30.

The National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of Energy agency that owns Y-12, held for nearly a decade that the project would cost no more than $6.5 billion and would be finished by 2025.

As it nears its 20th birthday and its fifth presidential administration, the project is more important than ever to federal efforts to modernize America's nuclear weapons infrastructure and keep up with rising threats around the world. The complex of six buildings at the heart of Y-12's highest-security area will replace Building 9212, completed in 1945 and still used for uranium processing.

Building 9212 is an emblem of Y-12's struggle to keep up with production demands inside buildings that are, in some cases, literally falling apart. A fire in the building in 2023 caused no reported injuries or contamination, but called fresh attention to the safety risks of aging facilities.

The Uranium Processing Facility is one of countless large construction projects around the country facing delays and cost overruns, thanks in large part to supply chain disruptions and labor shortages from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the project was completed before the pandemic. A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office published March 11, 2020 – the same day the World Health Organization declared COVID a pandemic – found that the Uranium Processing Facility was on track to be constructed by 2022 and complete by late 2025.

The cost estimate changed last year, when the National Nuclear Security Administration submitted a budget request to Congress that revised the cost to between $8.5 billion and $8.95 billion and the completion date to 2029. In the same request, the agency said it would spend more than $200 million on "reprogramming to prevent further delays."

In the National Nuclear Security Administration's blueprint for meeting nuclear needs by 2050 across its 16 facilities, released earlier this month, the agency listed the Uranium Processing Facility as a project to be completed between 2031 and 2040.

Y-12 work on nuclear weapons expands

Though Y-12 no longer enriches uranium for weapons, it processes and stores highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and naval reactors. The National Nuclear Security Administration contracts Consolidated Nuclear Security to manage Y-12, where staff members also work on international nuclear security efforts.

Facing two large nuclear adversaries in Russia and China, the U.S. has ramped up weapons production and Y-12's workload has expanded to around seven different kinds of warheads. The Uranium Processing Facility is part of Y-12's project to cut the highest-security perimeter within its fence in half, reducing costs while old buildings are demolished.

In addition to updating uranium processing, Y-12 broke ground in 2023 for a new Lithium Processing Facility, with an initial budget of between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion and an operational date of 2034.

The risk of global nuclear conflict between 2027 and 2035 is "an existential challenge for which the United States is ill-prepared," according to an October 2023 Congressionalreport, which said "the United States must re-evaluate the size and composition of the U.S. nuclear force."

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, a pro-nuclear Republican who represents Oak Ridge, has made funding the project central to his tenure as chairman of the House subcommittee on energy and water projects. In the latest budget, Fleischmann appropriated $810 million for the project, $50 million more than the National Nuclear Security Administration's record-high request.

In an interview with Knox News in April, Fleischmann said the project would overrun its budget and schedule, but held onto its bipartisan support.

"It will cost more, it will take longer, but for the nation's defense, we need to get that done," Fleischmann said. "Not only the Oak Ridge community and our state, but my friends in Congress on both sides of the aisle overwhelmingly support what we're doing."

Y-12 uranium facility has history of high costs

The National Nuclear Security Administration first asked the Department of Energy to approve the need for a new uranium processing facility in 2004, and initial design began in 2005.

After an external review of the design in 2013 projected the cost at $11 billion, the National Nuclear Security Administration scaled back its plans and a Senate committee capped the cost at $6.5 billion. Site preparations began in 2015 with the relocation of Bear Creek Road, and excavation began in 2016.

Since construction began, the scale of the project has been immense.

A workforce of up to 2,000 people removed 360,000 cubic yards of soil, replacing it with enough concrete to fill 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Y-12 built an electrical substation and concrete plant specifically for the complex. The two cranes that once towered over the site were some of the tallest in the Western hemisphere, at 300 feet and 360 feet tall.

In its budget request for the 2024 fiscal year, the National Nuclear Security Administration said the project's costs rose 40% during construction due partly to labor shortages and productivity issues.

The project is 67% completed, with major testing and commissioning still ahead. By far the costliest part of the project is the 252,000-square-foot main process building, with a total revised cost of $6.25 billion alone, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration budget request.

At the Knoxville conference where managers shared the latest estimates, hosted by the Oak Ridge-based Energy Technology and Environmental Business Association, NNSA officials found some reasons to celebrate the project.

For the last 11 months, the project has moved ahead of its revised budget and schedule, said Nicole Nelson-Jean, associate administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Infrastructure. She added the accomplishment was a first since construction began.

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Emaildaniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Y-12 Uranium Processing Facility will cost $10.3B, delayed to 2030s