The last of the fuel has been removed from Hanford's shutdown Fast Flux Test Facility and shipped to Idaho almost a year ahead of a legal deadline.

The research reactor is being deactivated to allow it to be put into a long-term surveillance and maintenance mode at minimum cost by August 2009. The Department of Energy was required under the Tri-Party Agreement to have the last of the fuel removed from the reactor in March 2009.

That included 375 fuel assemblies transported to central Hanford earlier for storage. They will be considered for disposal at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

In addition, FFTF had 11 sodium-bonded fuel assemblies that were shipped from FFTF to the Idaho National Laboratory because Hanford does not have the capability to remove the sodium inside the fuel pins. At Idaho the uranium will be extracted for possible reuse by commercial nuclear power plants

The first of 11 shipments to Idaho was made in October, with contractor Fluor Hanford receiving word the last shipment arrived May 1.

"We are pleased to see the FFTF reactor fuel removed from the Hanford site," Jane Hedges, the Washington State Department of Ecology nuclear waste program manager, said in a statement. "Ecology appreciates the commitment shown by the work force to do the job safely and ahead of the TPA schedule."

Shipping went smoothly, despite some brief delays because of icy roads, said Steve Doebler, Fluor Hanford vice president of the FFTF Closure Project.

The sodium-bonded fuel was a design used for experiments at the reactor, which operated from 1982 to 1992. Melted sodium was poured around the fuel pellets inside each fuel pin to conduct heat from plutonium and uranium. The sodium bonded the pellet to the cladding.

At the Idaho National Laboratory, the fuel is to be stored inside the Hot Fuel Examination Facility until it is scheduled to be processed beginning in fiscal year 2009, according to the Department of Energy in Idaho. Processing is expected to take two years.

The uranium will be extracted at the Fuel Conditioning Facility using an electro-metallurgical treatment process. The rods will be cut into pieces, dissolved in a bath of molten chemical salts and subjected to an electric current. Uranium from the fuel should gather on a steel rod inserted into the molten salt.

Extracted uranium 235 then will be blended with uranium 238 and cast into ingots. Waste from the process will include steel from the fuel tubes that will be melted into ingots for eventual disposal at Yucca Mountain. Small amounts of other radioactive substances, such as americium and plutonium, will be captured in the molten salt, which will be formed into ceramic ingots for disposal.

The Idaho National Laboratory uses the same process for spent nuclear fuel from the Experimental Breeder Reactor II. Its fuel is similar to FFTF's fuel. Uranium from the fuel of both reactors will be stored until a customer is found for it, according to DOE.

At FFTF, about 110 workers are continuing to deactivate equipment and to remove hazardous materials from the reactor. That includes transformers that have PCB contamination, refrigerants, oils and some residual sodium that has puddled in low areas of the piping system, Doebler said.

About half the workers have been at FFTF for three decades and many were there when the first fuel assemblies were brought in, he said.

All but the residual sodium had earlier been removed from the reactor's primary and secondary cooling systems. The sodium, which includes radioactive contamination, is expected to be used as a caustic additive to help turn radioactive waste now stored in underground tanks at Hanford into a stable glass at the vitrification plant under construction.

FFTF is being deactivated after the federal goveronment has so far found no use for the reactor that top officials consider cost effective. Supporters of saving it have proposed it be used for research for reprocessing fuel as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.