It likely will be months before Hanford crews begin closing the Fast Flux Test Facility.

Before then, millions of extra money must be found. More workers must be hired. Training must be updated.

It is expected to take almost $250 million over five years and eight months to shut down the FFTF to the point where all it requires is one or two surveillance checks a year, according to a Department of Energy report issued in July.

That translates to about $44 million a year. Right now, $36.5 million is allocated to keep the FFTF in standby mode for the 2002 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

FFTF critic Gerald Pollet, director of Heart of America Northwest, argued Wednesday that the shutdown could be sped up to take just three years and to save money.

The biggest parts of shutting down FFTF are draining its heated liquid sodium coolant and properly treating and packing its spent nuclear fuel.

According to various sources, here is how the shutdown should unfold:

One revolutionary aspect of the FFTF is the 260,000 gallons of liquid sodium used to cool the reactor. It flows through miles of pipes from the reactor's core to the distinctive squat, square-shaped cooling towers.

Once the sodium is drained, the reactor will for most purposes have reached the point of no return. Within a fairly short time, flaws will begin developing in the cooling pipes. DOE was about to drain the sodium in 1995, but FFTF supporters convinced the agency to keep the reactor dormant for more studies -- which led to Wednesday's shutdown decision.

But Hanford is not as ready today as it was in 1995 to begin shutdown. Training must be redone and procedures checked. Equipment must be upgraded. And a few workers must be hired to join the approximately 240 to 250 employees presently at FFTF.

Then, within a yet-determined number of months from now, crews will begin draining the liquid sodium coolant, which is heated to about 400 degrees.

Sodium will have to be cleaned off the spent fuel rods before they are stored in special casks, which eventually are to go to a proposed DOE storage site in Nevada.

The FFTF now has 126 fuel assemblies stored in 18 casks, with another 100 to 200 fuel to be cleaned and stored.

An extra $9 million will be needed for the first year of spent fuel work. It is unknown now whether that money will come from the current 2002 budget or in DOE's 2003 budget request, which goes to Congress in February.

One question is whether FFTF's closure will be financed from cleanup funds or nuclear energy funds. Its standby budget has come from nuclear energy funds. Hanford watchers such as Pollet will be watching to make sure the FFTF shutdown doesn't divert cleanup funding.