Advanced Recovery and Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) Fiscal Year 1996 Annual Report

President Clinton issued Nonprolferation and Export Control Policy in September 1993 in response to the growing threat of nuclear proliferation. Four months later, in January 1994, President Clinton and Russia's President Yeltsin issued a Joint Statement Between the United States and Russia on Nonprollfieration of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Means of Their Delivery. President Clinton announced on 1 March 1995, that approximately 200 metric tons of US- origin weapons-usable fissile materials had been declared surplus to US defense needs. The Advanced Recovery and Integrated Extraction System (ARIES) Demonstration Project is one part of the scientific response to President Clinton's promise to reduce the nuclear weapons stockpile. The work accomplished on the ARIES Demonstration Project during fiscal year 1996, 10ctober 1995 through 30 September 1996, is described in this report. The Department of Energy (DOE), by forming the Office of Fissile Materials Disposition (OFMD), has initiated a Fissile Materials Disposition Program. The first step is the disassembly and conversion of weapons pits. Of the 200 metric tons of US surplus fissile material, approximately 50 tons are weapons plutonium, and of these 50 tons, 2/3 is contained in pits. Weapons plutonium wili be extracted from pits, rendered to an unclassified form, and converted to oxide. The plutonium oxide will then be dispositioned either by immobilization in a ceramic matrix or blended with uranium oxide, fabricated into ceramic pellets of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, and "burned" in a commercial light water reactor. The purpose of ARIES is to demonstrate two major activities: (1) dismantlement of nuclear weapons, and (2) conversion of weapons-grade plutonium into a form required for long-term storage or in preparation for the disposition (immobilization m MOX fuel) that allows for international inspection and verification, and in accordance with safeguards regimes. Plutonium does not have to be declassified before storage; however, declassification allows plutonium to be placed under international safeguards and provides political irreversibility of the material. The OFMD sponsors the ARIES Program. The Los Alamos National Laboratory is the lead laboratory for the ARIES Demonstration Project with support from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico. Also, ARIES is the lead technical activity for nationaI plutonium disposition, as well as a major effort of the Los Alamos Nuclear Materials Disposition Project. The ARIES Project Leader, Timothy O. Nelson, is a technical staff member in the Advanced Technology Group (NMT-6) who is responsible for overall project management and system implementation