DOE Baselines Savannah River Pit Production Facility, Authorizes Full Construction of Main Processing Building
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Energy announced on October 16 that it has approved the performance baseline and authorized a full start of construction for the Main Processing Building of the Savannah River Pit Production Facility (SRPPF) in South Carolina. The approval, known as Critical Decision 2/3, was signed on October 15.
The facility, covering about 160 acres of the Savannah River Site, includes the primary production building and auxiliary support facilities needed to produce war-reserve plutonium pits. Earlier this year, DOE approved the same milestone for the facility's High-Fidelity Training and Operations Center.
Once construction is complete, the Savannah River Site will join Los Alamos National Laboratory as a pit production site under the National Nuclear Security Administration's two-site strategy. DOE did not publish cost or schedule figures for the approved baseline. The Savannah River Site, built in the 1950s across Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell counties, covers about 310 square miles and today focuses largely on waste disposal and environmental cleanup.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：美国能源部总部福雷斯特大楼（资料照片）。Carol M. Highsmith 摄，公共领域，取自维基共享资源。File photo: the James V. Forrestal Building, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Energy. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
