Spent Nuclear Fuel Management

The Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) was established in the 1950s as the Chemical Processing Plant (CPP) to recover usable uranium in spent nuclear fuel used in government reactors. The facility recovered more than $1 billion worth of highly enriched uranium, which was returned to the government fuel cycle.

In 1992, the Department of Energy announced that the changing world political situation and the lack of demand for highly enriched uranium made reprocessing no longer necessary. In 1998, the plant was renamed INTEC.

Today, the workers at INTEC have turned their focus to cleanup and protection of the Snake River Plain Aquifer. Management of spent nuclear fuel at dry storage facilities.

Building CPP-666 contains a modern, large storage area consisting of six pools that stored spent nuclear fuel until March 2023. Radioactive spent fuel was safely stored in racks beneath pools containing some three million gallons of water. The water provided protective shielding while protecting the environment. The fuel storage pool area is built into the concrete structure of the building. All spent fuel was removed from underwater storage pools, placed in a dry storage system and prepared for shipment to a national nuclear waste repository. Experimental Breeder Reactor-II spent nuclear fuel was transferred to two dry-storage locations at the Materials and Fuels Complex: the Radioactive Scrap and Waste Facility and the Fuel Conditioning Facility. Advanced Test Reactor spent nuclear fuel was transferred to CPP-603 for dry storage.