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4 | SRNS TODAY | JUNE 2021 Special Edition

NNSA announces CD-1 approval

SRNS has achieved a key milestone in Laboratory, Merrick, Fluor, and Sandia National Laboratories’ Physical
the plans to produce plutonium pits for the Security Center of Excellence.
nation’s nuclear deterrent. “Completing the conceptual design and other documents has been
a massive undertaking,” said Dave Olson, SRNS Executive Vice
DOE/NNSA has announced approval of Critical Decision 1 (CD-1) for President - NNSA Capital Projects, “But this is what the Savannah
SRPPF. DOE’s Order 413.3B defines the process for the acquisition of River Site does. This Site has a 70-year history of stepping up to meet
capital assets with a series of Critical Decisions. The process begins the nation’s national security needs, and today the nation urgently
with CD-0, which approves the mission need, and continues through needs to rebuild its pit production capability. Now we are eager to
CD-4, project completion. CD-1 marks the completion of the project move forward with the next steps for meeting that need.”
approval definition phase and the conceptual design.
In 2018, NNSA announced that repurposing the Mixed Oxide (MOX)
Approval of CD-1 came after review of SRNS’ extensive package Fuel Fabrication Facility as SRPPF would be part of its proposed
of documents outlining the conceptual design and numerous other two-site strategy for meeting pit production requirements defined
project and program plans for the facility. A member of one of by the Department of Defense to support the maintenance of the
the teams reviewing the package noted that the comprehensive U.S. nuclear deterrent. Plutonium pits are an essential component to
collection of documents was the best CD-1 submittal they had nuclear weapons.
ever reviewed.
In addition to SRPPF, NNSA’s two-site approach includes use of Los
All told, the package included over 4,500 separate documents, for Alamos National Laboratory for future pit production. This two-site
3.17 gigabytes of data. SRNS was supported in its preparation of the strategy provides an effective, responsive, and resilient nuclear
package by a team that includes Savannah River National Laboratory, weapons infrastructure with the flexibility to adapt to shifting national
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National security requirements.

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