Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC is a limited liability company owned by Bechtel and Jacobs Engineering Group that served as the primary contractor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for waste management and environmental remediation activities on DOE-managed federal government properties in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Bechtel Jacobs was established as the environmental management contractor for DOE's Oak Ridge operations (including sites in Paducah, Kentucky and Piketon, Ohio, in addition to Oak Ridge) in 1997, when a $2.5 billion management and integration contract was issued to the company. In 2003 Bechtel Jacobs was awarded a new 5-year cost-plus-incentive-fee contract with an estimated value of $1.8 billion. [1] Bechtel Jacobs was replaced as the environmental remediation contractor for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Piketon in 2005, after DOE awarded a new contract to LATA/Parallax Portsmouth, LLC, a joint small business venture of Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA) and Parallax, Inc. [2] [3] Bechtel Jacobs involvement at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site ended in 2006 after DOE entered into a new contract with Paducah Remediation Services LLC (a partnership of Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure and Portage Environmental) for environmental management work there. [4] Bechtel Jacobs' role in Oak Ridge ended in 2011 after the environmental management contract for DOE properties there was awarded to UCOR, a partnership of URS Corporation and CH2M Hill. [5]
Bechtel Corporation is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California in 1898, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. As of 2022, the Engineering News-Record ranked Bechtel as the second largest construction company in the United States, following Turner Construction.
Uranium hexafluoride, sometimes called hex, is an inorganic compound with the formula UF6. Uranium hexafluoride is a volatile, toxic white solid that is used in the process of enriching uranium, which produces fuel for nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory is a U.S. Government-owned research and development facility in the Pittsburgh suburb of West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, that works exclusively on the design and development of nuclear power for the U.S. Navy. It was one of the leaders in creating the nuclear navy.
The United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers is a system of laboratories overseen by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for scientific and technological research. The primary mission of the DOE national laboratories is to conduct research and development (R&D) addressing national priorities: energy and climate, the environment, national security, and health. Sixteen of the seventeen DOE national laboratories are federally funded research and development centers administered, managed, operated and staffed by private-sector organizations under management and operating (M&O) contracts with the DOE. The National Laboratory system was established in the wake of World War II, during which the United States had quickly set-up and pursued advanced scientific research in the sprawling Manhattan Project.
The Savannah River Site (SRS) is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) reservation in the United States, located in the state of South Carolina on land in Aiken, Allendale, and Barnwell counties adjacent to the Savannah River. It lies 25 miles (40 km) southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for deployment in nuclear weapons. It covers 310 square miles (800 km2) and employs more than 10,000 people.
Gaseous diffusion is a technology that was used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through microporous membranes. This produces a slight separation (enrichment factor 1.0043) between the molecules containing uranium-235 (235U) and uranium-238 (238U). By use of a large cascade of many stages, high separations can be achieved. It was the first process to be developed that was capable of producing enriched uranium in industrially useful quantities, but is nowadays considered obsolete, having been superseded by the more-efficient gas centrifuge process (enrichment factor 1.05 to 1.2).
K-25 was the codename given by the Manhattan Project to the program to produce enriched uranium for atomic bombs using the gaseous diffusion method. Originally the codename for the product, over time it came to refer to the project, the production facility located at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the main gaseous diffusion building, and ultimately the site. When it was built in 1944, the four-story K-25 gaseous diffusion plant was the world's largest building, comprising over 5,264,000 square feet (489,000 m2) of floor space and a volume of 97,500,000 cubic feet (2,760,000 m3).
The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan Project for the purpose of enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs. In the years after World War II, it has been operated as a manufacturing facility for nuclear weapons components.
Kyger Creek Power Plant is a 1.08-gigawatt, 1,086 (MW) coal-fired power station located south of Cheshire, Ohio in Gallia County, Ohio. It is operated by the Ohio Valley Electric Corporation (OVEC).
Clifty Creek Power Plant is a 1,300-MW coal-fired power station located in Madison, Indiana. Clifty Creek is operated by the Indiana Kentucky Electric Corporation. It is named after Clifty Creek, which enters the Ohio River nearby.
The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a multi-program national laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management. SRNL is located at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Jackson, South Carolina. It was founded in 1951, as the Savannah River Laboratory as a research, development and manufacturing center for tritium production from lithium. The intended end use of the tritium was in nuclear fusion weapons, as well as in thermonuclear fusion reactors for civilian use. Plutonium production and research was a second main activity in the lab at that time.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is a facility located in Scioto Township, Pike County, Ohio, just south of Piketon, Ohio, that previously produced enriched uranium, including highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, for the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the U.S. nuclear weapons program and Navy nuclear propulsion; in later years, it produced low-enriched uranium for fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. The site never hosted an operating nuclear reactor.
The three Oak Ridge gatehouses, also known as "checking stations", "guard houses", or "guard shacks", are security checkpoints in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, built c. 1948-1949 to control access to the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) production and research facilities in Oak Ridge. These are individually listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places as Bear Creek Road Checking Station, Bethel Valley Road Checking Station and Oak Ridge Turnpike Checking Station.
The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) is a facility located in McCracken County, Kentucky, near Paducah, Kentucky that produced enriched uranium from 1952 to 2013. It is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The PGDP was the only operating uranium enrichment facility in the United States from 2001 to 2010. The Paducah plant produced low-enriched uranium, originally as feedstock for military reactors and weapons, and later for commercial nuclear power fuel.
Los Alamos Technical Associates (LATA) is a diversified engineering, scientific, and technical services company serving a worldwide client base. Founded in 1976 in Los Alamos, New Mexico, US, LATA has offices nationwide with corporate offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico. LATA is an employee-owned company. Their work is in four primary service areas: nuclear, environmental, defense and security, and engineering.
Centrus Energy Corp. is an American company that supplies nuclear fuel for use in nuclear power plants and works to develop and deploy advanced centrifuge technology to produce enriched uranium for commercial and government uses, including for national security.
Clarence Edward Larson was an American chemist, nuclear physicist and industrial leader. He was involved in the Manhattan Project, and was later director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
Vincent Adams is a retired Guyanese-American environmental engineer. He was a senior manager at the United States Department of Energy until his retirement in 2016, and subsequently served as head of the Guyana Environmental Protection Agency from 2018 to 2020. Before immigrating to the United States he played first-class cricket for Guyana.
Consolidated Nuclear Security is an American federal contractor that manages the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Pantex plant.