US to recover world’s only supply of rare plutonium from Cold War waste

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has initiated a new radiochemical separation process at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) to recover rare isotopes from Cold War-era Mark-18A targets. These legacy materials contain the world’s only supply of unseparated plutonium-244, a rare isotope vital for nuclear forensics, along with significant amounts of heavy curium. The recovered curium is converted into californium-252, a crucial start-up source for nuclear reactors. This effort marks the reestablishment of specialized radiochemical processing capabilities lost since the Cold War, supporting critical government missions and advancing domestic nuclear recovery capabilities. The initiative, known as the Mark-18A Target Recovery Program, is a multi-year collaboration involving the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Office of Environmental Management, and the Office of Science. It integrates environmental cleanup with national security objectives, transforming Cold War nuclear waste into strategic resources. A recent environmental incident at the Savannah River Site, where wasp nests