The Hanford “B” canyon, pictured here, was the first large-scale reprocessing plant in the world. Spent fuel from the\u00a0Hanford “B” reactor<\/a>\u00a0was chopped into pieces (using robotic equipment) and dissolved in boiling nitric acid; then the plutonium was chemically extracted from the\u00a0corrosive, highly radioactive acid solution<\/a>\u00a0in an elongated gravity-fed remote controlled chemical plant called a “canyon”. The “B” canyon extracted plutonium that was subsequently used in the Trinity bomb (June 14, 1945) and the Nagasaki bomb (August 9, 1945).<\/p>\n Today the B plant houses the Waste Encapsulation Storage Facility, which packages cesium-137 (left over from the bomb program) in metal capsules for use in America’s commercial\u00a0food-irradiation<\/a>\u00a0industry.<\/p>\n The World’s First Large Plutonium Reprocessing Plant [\u00a0pour la version fran\u00e7aise\u00a0] A reprocessing plant is a chemical factory for separating plutonium from spent fuel discharged from a nuclear reactor. Eight American reprocessing plants operated during the Cold War, located at Hanford, Wahington; at Savannah River, South Carolina; and in Idaho. The Hanford “B” canyon, …<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.ccnr.org\/gifs\/B_plant_reprocessing.JPG\")
<\/span>A reprocessing plant is a chemical factory for separating plutonium from spent fuel discharged from a nuclear reactor. Eight American reprocessing plants operated during the Cold War, located at Hanford, Wahington; at Savannah River, South Carolina; and in Idaho.<\/p>\n
\nphoto by Robert Del Tredici from his book entitled
\nAt Work in the Fields of the Bomb (Harper & Row, 1987)<\/h6>\n
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\n[\u00a0Plutonium Sub-Directory<\/a>\u00a0]<\/center><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"