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The Y-12 National Security Complex is a
United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...
National Nuclear Security Administration The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is a United States federal agency responsible for safeguarding national security through the military application of Nuclear physics, nuclear science. NNSA maintains and enhances the Stockpil ...
facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
. It was built as part of the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
for the purpose of enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs. It is considered the birthplace of the
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
. In the years after World War II, it has been operated as a manufacturing facility for nuclear weapons components and related defense purposes. Y-12 is managed and operated under contract by
Consolidated Nuclear Security Consolidated Nuclear Security is an American federal contractor. They are one of the 100 largest federal contractors in the United States. Overview Consolidated Nuclear Security manages the Y-12 National Security Complex and the Pantex plant. Con ...
, LLC (CNS), which is composed of member companies Bechtel National Inc.,
Leidos Leidos, formerly known as Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), is an American defense company, defense, Aerospace manufacturer, aviation, information technology (Lockheed Martin IS&GS), and biomedical research company headquart ...
Inc.,
Orbital ATK Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems (NGIS) was a sector (business segment) of Northrop Grumman from 2018 through 2019. It was formed from Orbital ATK Inc. a company which resulted from the merger of Orbital Sciences Corporation and parts of Alli ...
, Inc, and SOC LLC, with
Booz Allen Hamilton Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 8 ...
Inc. as a teaming subcontractor. CNS also operates
Pantex Plant Pantex is the primary United States nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility that aims to maintain the safety, security and reliability of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The facility is located in the Panhandle of Texas on a site ...
in Texas.


History

Y-12 is the
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
code name for the
electromagnet An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by an electric current. Electromagnets usually consist of wire wound into a coil. A current through the wire creates a magnetic field which is concentrated in the ...
ic
isotope separation Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is varied. The largest variety is used in research (e.g. in chemistry where atoms of "marker" n ...
plant producing
enriched uranium Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...
at the
Clinton Engineer Works The Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) was the production installation of the Manhattan Project that during World War II produced the enriched uranium used in the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, as well as the first examples of reactor-produced pluton ...
in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as part of the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
. Construction began in February 1943 under the management of
Stone and Webster Stone & Webster was an American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts. It was founded as an electrical testing lab and consulting firm by electrical engineers Charles A. Stone and Edwin S. Webster in 1889. In the early ...
. Because of a wartime shortage of
copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...
, the massive electromagnetic coils were made with 14,700 tons of coinage
silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
from U.S. government vaults at West Point. Colonel
Kenneth D. Nichols Major General Kenneth David Nichols CBE (13 November 1907 – 21 February 2000), also known by Nick, was an officer in the United States Army, and a civil engineer who worked on the secret Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb d ...
met with the Under Secretary of the Treasury,
Daniel W. Bell Daniel Wafena Bell (July 23, 1891 – October 4, 1971) was an American civil servant and businessman. Born in Kinderhook, Illinois, he was acting director of the Bureau of the Budget (now the Office of Management and Budget) from September 1, 193 ...
, and requested between five and ten thousand tons of silver. Bell's stunned reply was, "Colonel, in the Treasury we do not speak of tons of silver; our unit is the
troy ounce Troy weight is a system of units of mass that originated in 15th-century England, and is primarily used in the precious metals industry. The troy weight units are the grain, the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and th ...
." Thus the Manhattan Engineer District requested and was loaned 395 million troy ounces of silver (13,540 
short ton The short ton (symbol tn) is a measurement unit equal to . It is commonly used in the United States, where it is known simply as a ton, although the term is ambiguous, the single word being variously used for short, long, and metric ton. The vari ...
s, 12,300 
tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000  kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
s) from the West Point Depository for the duration of the Manhattan Project. Special guards and accountants were assigned to the silver, and their responsible caretaking meant that at the end of the war, less than 0.036% out of more than $300 million worth of silver was lost to the process, with the remainder returned to the Treasury. The Y-12 facility began operating in November 1943, separating
uranium-235 Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exis ...
from natural uranium, which is 99.3%
uranium-238 Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However, it ...
, by using
calutron A calutron is a mass spectrometer originally designed and used for separating the isotopes of uranium. It was developed by Ernest Lawrence during the Manhattan Project and was based on his earlier invention, the cyclotron. Its name was derive ...
s to perform electromagnetic
isotope separation Isotope separation is the process of concentrating specific isotopes of a chemical element by removing other isotopes. The use of the nuclides produced is varied. The largest variety is used in research (e.g. in chemistry where atoms of "marker" n ...
. Y-12 separated the uranium-235 for
Little Boy "Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' p ...
, the
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945.
K-25 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 prod ...
, another facility in Oak Ridge, produced enriched uranium using
gaseous diffusion Gaseous diffusion is a technology used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) through semipermeable membranes. This produces a slight separation between the molecules containing uranium-235 (235U) and uranium-2 ...
. However, K-25 did not begin operating until March 1945 and fed slightly enriched uranium to Y-12's Beta Calutrons as the push to obtain enough uranium 235 for Little Boy came in the early summer of 1945. The S-50 Thermal Diffusion Plant at the K-25 site also provided feed material for Y-12's Beta Calutrons.
Tennessee Eastman Eastman Chemical Company is an American company primarily involved in the chemical industry. Once a subsidiary of Kodak, today it is an independent global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of advanced materials, chemicals and ...
was hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to manage Y-12 during the Manhattan Project. The company transferred scientists from
Kingsport, Tennessee Kingsport is a city in Sullivan and Hawkins counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 census, its population was 55,442. Lying along the Holston River, Kingsport is commonly included in what is known as the Mountain Empire, w ...
to Y-12 and operated the plant from 1943 to May 1947. The Y-12 electromagnetic plant units were initially operated by scientists from Berkeley to remove bugs and achieve a reasonable operating rate. They were then turned over to trained Tennessee Eastman operators who had only a high school education. Nichols compared unit production data, and pointed out to physicist
Ernest Lawrence Ernest Orlando Lawrence (August 8, 1901 â€“ August 27, 1958) was an American nuclear physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. He is known for his work on uranium-isotope separation fo ...
that the young "hillbilly" girl operators were outproducing his doctorate-holding scientists. They agreed to a production race and Lawrence lost, a morale boost for the Tennessee Eastman workers and supervisors. The girls were "trained like soldiers not to reason why", while "the scientists could not refrain from time-consuming investigation of the cause of even minor fluctuations of the dials". The young women that worked in this capacity came to be known as " Calutron Girls."{{cite web , title=A Book Review of The Girls of Atomic City by Denise Kiernan , url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/book-review-girls-atomic-city-denise-kiernan , website=nationalww2museum.org , publisher=National World War II Museum , access-date=2021-09-09 The
Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befo ...
corporation succeeded Tennessee Eastman as the operating contractor in 1947, remaining until 1984, when Union Carbide relinquished the contract for operating DOE's Oak Ridge facilities, and the Martin Marietta corporation (later
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
) won the contract to take over the operation. BWXT Y-12 (name later changed to B&W Y-12) succeeded Lockheed Martin as the Y-12 operator in November 2000. A chemical explosion injured several workers at the Y-12 facility on December 8, 1999, when
NaK In data networking, telecommunications, and computer buses, an acknowledgment (ACK) is a signal that is passed between communicating processes, computers, or devices to signify acknowledgment, or receipt of message, as part of a communicatio ...
was cleaned up after an accidental spill, inappropriately treated with mineral oil, and inadvertently ignited when the surface coating of
potassium superoxide Potassium superoxide is an inorganic compound with the formula KO2. It is a yellow paramagnetic solid that decomposes in moist air. It is a rare example of a stable salt of the superoxide anion. It is used as a scrubber, dehumidifier, and ge ...
was scratched by a metal tool.


1958 criticality incident

At 11 p.m. on June 16, 1958, a
criticality accident A criticality accident is an accidental uncontrolled nuclear fission chain reaction. It is sometimes referred to as a critical excursion, critical power excursion, or divergent chain reaction. Any such event involves the unintended accumulation ...
occurred in the C-1 Wing of Building 9212 at the facility, then operating under the management of
Union Carbide Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befo ...
. In the incident, a solution of highly enriched uranium was mistakenly diverted into a steel drum, causing a fission reaction of 15–20 minutes duration. Eight workers were hospitalized for moderate to severe radiation sickness or exposure, but all eventually returned to work. In June 1960 the eight workers, Bill Wilburn, O. C. Collins, Travis Rogers, R. D. Jones, Howard Wagner, T. W. Stinnett, Paul McCurry, and Bill Clark filed suit against the Atomic Energy Commission. The suit was settled out-of-court. Wilburn, who had received the highest radiation dose, was awarded $18,000 (approximately $185,000 in 2022 dollars). Clark received $9,000 (worth approximately $92,500 in 2022).{{Cite web, first=Frank, last=Munger, url=http://knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/2014/06/14/nuclear-survivor-bill-clark-recalls-1958-criticality-accident-life-since/, title=Nuclear survivor: Bill Clark recalls 1958 criticality accident and his up-and-down life since then, date=2014-06-14, website=Atomic City Underground also published in ''
Knoxville News Sentinel The ''Knoxville News Sentinel, also known as Knox News,'' is a daily newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, owned by the Gannett Company. History The newspaper was formed in 1926 from the merger of two competing newspapers: ''The ...
'' and '' Stars and Stripes''.
Under the
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) was passed by Congress in 2000 and is designed to compensate individuals who worked in nuclear weapons production and as a result of occupational exposures contracted certa ...
, the eight later received additional compensation from the government; Clark collected multiple payments totaling about $250,000. Most, if not all, of the eight victims were diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lives.{{Citation needed, date=May 2022 As of June 2014, Clark was the only surviving member of the eight.


Facilities and missions

Y-12's primary missions since the end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
have been to support defense needs through stockpile stewardship, assist on issues of nuclear non-proliferation, support the Naval Reactors program, and provide expertise to other federal agencies. Y-12 is also responsible for the maintenance and production of all uranium parts and "secondary" mechanisms for every nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal. Y-12 has a history of providing secure storage of nuclear material for both the United States and other governments. Early efforts focused on securing material from the former Soviet Union; recent activities have included recovery of highly enriched uranium from Chile. Environmental cleanup has been an ongoing issue for the Department of Energy in Oak Ridge. The Y-12 plant was listed as an EPA Superfund site in the 1990s for groundwater and soil contamination. Today, the Y-12 plant is listed on the DOE's Cleanup Criteria/Decision Document Database (or C2D2 database). An influx of funding from the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...
benefited cleanup efforts by funding demolition and decontamination of aging facilities. These efforts work to further the long-term reduction in the size of the Y-12 facility. CNS Y-12 currently{{when, date=May 2013 employs approximately 4,700 people. About 1,500 additional personnel work onsite as employees of organizations that include UT-Battelle,
Science Applications International Corporation Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Inc. is an American technology company headquartered in Reston, Virginia that provides government services and information technology support. History The original SAIC was created in 196 ...
, UCOR, and WSI Oak Ridge (an American-controlled unit of
G4S Secure Solutions G4S Secure Solutions (USA) is an American / British-based security services company, and a subsidiary of G4S plc. It was founded as The Wackenhut Corporation in 1954, in Coral Gables, Florida, by George Wackenhut and three partners (all are fo ...
), which holds the security contract for the site. Workers at the site were represented by the
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union The Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) was a trade union in the United States which existed between 1917 and 1999. At the time of its dissolution and merger, the International represented 80,000 workers and was affiliated with the AFLâ ...
(OCAW).{{cite encyclopedia , last=Bischak , first=Greg , editor-last1=Dumas , editor-first1=Lloyd J. , editor-last2=Thee , editor-first2=Marek , encyclopedia=Making Peace Possible: The Promise of Economic Conversion , title=Facing the Second Generation of the Nuclear Weapons Complex: Renewal of the Nuclear Production Base or Economic Conversion? , url=https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Making_Peace_Possible/brijBQAAQBAJ , access-date=2022-03-20 , year=1989 , publisher=Pergamon Press , series=Peace Research Monograph , volume=19 , isbn=0-08-037252X , page=115


Anti-nuclear protests

Since 1988, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance has organized non-violent direct action protests at the Y-12 Complex, in an effort to close down the weapons plant. Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch, a Catholic nun, has been arrested many times for protesting at the Oak Ridge facility. She has said, "I believe the continuing weapons production at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is in direct violation of the treaty obligations of the United States and consequently, is a violation of Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution". In 2011, the Rev. William J. Bichsel, an 84-year-old priest, received a prison sentence of three months for trespassing on federal property at the Y-12 complex. In 2012, there have been protests about the proposed new Uranium Processing Facility, which is expected to cost $7.5 billion. In July 2012,
Megan Rice Megan Gillespie Rice S.H.C.J. (Society of the Holy Child Jesus) (January 31, 1930 – October 10, 2021) was an American nuclear disarmament activist, Catholic nun, and former missionary.William J. Broad"Behind Nuclear Breach, a Nun's Bold Fervo ...
, an 82-year-old Catholic sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and two military veterans who now worked for peace, Gregory Boertje-Obed, and Michael Walli, entered the Y-12 complex. They were all Plowshares activists, and they chose Y-12 because of its crucial role in the production of nuclear weapons. They spray-painted anti-war slogans on the exterior of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, a structure for storing weapons-grade uranium. The
anti-nuclear The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...
activists, who got past fences and disabled security sensors before dawn on July 28, spent several hours in the complex, spray-painted peace messages, and prayed and sang before they were stopped by a guard, who was later joined by another. The security breach prompted private experts to criticize the Department of Energy's safeguarding of nuclear materials. The agency is to reappraise security measures across its nuclear weapons program. The DOE-OIG found that all of the defenses for the plant were insufficient and that the security response had "troubling displays of ineptitude." On May 9, 2013, the three were convicted of sabotage. In her testimony Rice said "I regret I didn't do this 70 years ago."(Rice quote)


See also

*
Anti-nuclear protests in the United States The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, nationa ...
*
COLEX process (isotopic separation) The COLEX process (or COLEX separation) is a chemical method of isotopic separation of lithium-6 and lithium-7, based on the use of mercury. COLEX stands for column exchange. Since the beginning of the atomic era, a variety of lithium enrichments ...
*
Fogbank Fogbank is a code name given to a material used in the W76, W78 and W88 nuclear warheads that are part of the United States nuclear arsenal. Fogbank's precise nature is classified; in the words of former Oak Ridge general manager Dennis Ruddy, ...
*
K-25 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 prod ...
*
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...
* S-50 *
Vulnerability of nuclear plants to attack The vulnerability of nuclear plants to deliberate attack is of concern in the area of nuclear safety and security. Nuclear power plants, civilian research reactors, certain naval fuel facilities, uranium enrichment plants, fuel fabrication plants, ...


References

{{Reflist, 30em


External links

* {{Official website
United States Department of Energy

National Nuclear Security Administration

A map of Oak Ridge, Tennessee during the time of the Manhattan Project
{{Manhattan Project {{U.S. anti-nuclear {{Authority control {{Coord, 35, 59, 18, N, 84, 15, 17, W, display=title Nuclear weapons infrastructure of the United States United States Department of Energy facilities Buildings and structures in Anderson County, Tennessee Industrial buildings and structures in Tennessee Isotope separation facilities Oak Ridge, Tennessee Manhattan Project sites Isotope separation facilities of the Manhattan Project Military history of Tennessee Military research of the United States 1943 establishments in Tennessee Anti-nuclear protests in the United States Nuclear accidents and incidents in the United States Superfund sites in Tennessee