Oak Ridge hails demolition of two enrichment buildings in single year

The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management announced that its Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) is setting a new benchmark in cleanup progress at the Tennessee nuclear site-conducting demolition of two former Manhattan Project-era uranium enrichment facilities in a single year.

Crews with OREM and cleanup contractor United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) have successfully prepared the 210,000-square-foot Beta-1 facility for teardown to begin this summer at Oak Ridge's Y-12 National Security Complex. That demolition comes after workers finished knocking down Alpha-2 six months ahead of schedule.

"Achieving demolition readiness so promptly highlights the caliber of our workforce," said Morgan Carden, Y-12 portfolio federal project director. "The precision of this sequencing avoids lag times and allows our crews to move immediately to the next project to continue Y-12's transformation in a major way."

Beta-1: Categorized as a high-risk, excess contaminated facility due to its contents and condition, Y-12's Beta-1 building was constructed in 1944 to enrich uranium during World War II. It was later converted to laboratory space for fusion energy technology. Demolition of the massive structure will eliminate old, unused infrastructure and open land to support future DOE missions.

After deactivating Beta-1's aboveground floors, UCOR began addressing the basement in the fall of 2024. According to DOE-EM, the work was a complex, multidisciplinary effort, including collecting more than 900 samples, pumping 17 million gallons of water, testing and removing 3,000 feet of drainpipes, and pouring more than 2,500 truckloads of controlled low-strength material-a concrete mixture-to stabilize the foundation for demolition equipment.

DOE-EM said the use of LiDAR technology helped quicken the pace of Beta-1's deactivation while strengthening worker safety, providing engineers with a detailed 3D map of building spaces without requiring workers to enter contaminated or confined spaces.

Beta-1's demolition is set to conclude in 2028. Following that project, crews will pivot immediately to remove Y-12's Old Steam Plant. Also known as Building 9401-1, the 13,454-square-foot plant was constructed in 1943 and supported multiple missions over the decades, including uranium enrichment support activities, fuels testing, and maintenance and storage operations.

Alpha-2: DOE-EM completed the demolition of the 325,000-square-foot Alpha-2 building in January.

Also known as Building 9201-2, Alpha-2 was one of eight original Calutron buildings at Oak Ridge that enriched uranium for the first atomic bombs. Like Beta-1, the Alpha-2 building was categorized as a high-risk, excess contaminated facility by the DOE.

Preparations for demolishing Alpha-2 began in 2020 and involved the meticulous removal of radiological and chemical hazards from inside the facility and rerouting active utility lines-including steam, air, gas, and water-outside the facility that are essential to Y-12's operations.