Work begins at Hanford to tear down what once was one of the nation’s most secure complexes.
The Plutonium Finishing Plant’s vault complex, which once stored plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program, is coming down.
About two-thirds of the US’s plutonium was produced at the Plutonium Finishing Plant, where liquid plutonium that had been processed from fuel irradiated at Hanford reactors was formed into metal buttons the size of hockey pucks.
Until the end of the Cold War, the buttons were shipped to other DOE sites to be fabricated into metal pieces for weapons.
But after the Cold War, 2,300 canisters of plutonium, each the size of a large coffee can, were left stored at the vault complex under heavy guard as the Plutonium Finishing Plant was cleaned out. The weights of the cans varied, but some held nearly 10 pounds of plutonium.
Work has been under way for years to prepare for the demolition.
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