Valar Watch · Fact dir-025

Fact dir-025

newrecordconfirmed DOE's signed approval memo itself: Ward 250 fuel shipments are limited to 'less than 20 weight percent' U-235

2026-05-20 · dir-025 · U.S. Department of Energy, DOE Office of Packaging and Transportation, DOE Savannah River Operations Office, Valar Atomics, National Criticality Experiments Research Center

The certificate half of DOE's May 2026 shipping review is a one-page memorandum dated 20 May 2026 from DOE's Headquarters Certifying Official (Director, Office of Packaging and Transportation) to the Manager of DOE's Savannah River Operations Office. Answering email requests of 30 April and 19 May 2026 made for the Savannah River Site Office Manager, it amends Certificate of Compliance 9979, Revision 20, to authorize 'limited shipments' of TRISO fuel compacts from the National Criticality Experiments Research Center in Nevada to the Valar Atomics Ward 250 reactor site in Utah. Its conditions are: 170 compacts per package, secured in the WARD250 fuel block (drawing V-002782); at most 234.94 g of U-235 per block; 'The maximum U-235 enrichment is less than 20 weight percent'; a criticality safety index of 1.0; and expiry on 30 June 2027 or at completion of shipments. The companion SER (safe-010) says the uranium is 'enriched to a maximum of 19.9 wt.% U-235'. Both are limits on what may be shipped, not a measurement of what was loaded. No earlier authorization for these contents in this package was found. Revision 21 of the same certificate (date of issuance 2 September 2026; answering a 1 December 2025 request supplemented 13 April 2026) and its SER do not mention Valar, Ward 250 or the letter amendment, and neither says whether the Valar authorization carries forward. (Updates safe-010.)

In plain termsDOE's formal approval to ship Ward 250's fuel caps the uranium at just under 20% enriched. That is a ceiling on what could be shipped, not a record of what went into the reactor. The approval was signed on May 20, 2026.

Letter Amendment of Department of Energy Certificate of Compliance Number 9979 (memorandum, Revision 20 LA1) (U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Packaging and Transportation, 2026-05-20) primary government “The maximum U-235 enrichment is less than 20 weight percent.”
Safety Evaluation Report, Letter Amendment of Certificate of Compliance No. 9979, Docket 26-35-9979 (U.S. Department of Energy, Packaging Certification Program, 2026-05-20) primary government “enriched to a maximum of 19.9 wt.% U-235”
Amendment of DOE Certificate of Compliance Number 9979, Revision 21 (memorandum and certificate) (U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Packaging and Transportation, 2026-09-02) primary government “Revision 21, for the Model 9979 package is issued for amendment”
Safety Evaluation Report for Amendment of DOE CoC 9979, Docket 26-04-9979 (U.S. Department of Energy, Packaging Certification Program, 2026-09) primary government

verified 2026-09-30: Skeptic pass 2026-09-30: re-downloaded all four PDFs (rampac robots allows /docs/). Re-read the R20-LA1 memo in full (1 page; PDF created 21 May 2026); quotes and conditions exact. Re-read the SER R20-LA1 contents section (signed 2026.05.20). OCR'd R21 certificate pages 2-14 again (tesseract, 200 dpi): 'Date of Issuance: September 2, 2026', expiry 30 Sept 2030; no Valar, Ward or letter-amendment text (it covers TRISO fuel generally). SER R21 text has no Valar or Ward. Fixed: 'no shipment was authorized before that date' became 'no earlier authorization was found'. Renumbered from a duplicate 'dir-017'.

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