Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
Today, Y-12 is also involved in evaluating subsystems returned from stockpile and in dealing with
recovered nuclear materials.
Another United States Department of Energy (DOE) facility located in East Tennessee is the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL). A multi-program facility involved in applied research and development, the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the largest science, energy, and technology laboratory of the DOE.
ORNL conducts research on many areas including: neutron scattering, nanotechnology, biological
systems, high-performance computing, interfacial chemistry, mass spectrometry, nuclear medicine, and
electron microscopy.
In the past, that is, before the end of the Second World War, Oak Ridge National Laboratory was part of
the Manhattan Project, the project that developed the world's first atomic bombs. Manhattan Project was
a collaboration between the US, Canada, and the UK. Known mainly during the Manhattan Project as site
X-10, the Oak Ridge, Tennessee facility was involved primarily in the production of uranium-235 for the
first atomic bombs.
The East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), located also in Oakridge, is a cluster of different industrial
facilities that have their beginnings as far as the Manhattan Project. ETTP was previously engaged in the
enriching of uranium in the uranium-235 isotope for commercial use (nuclear energy plants) and for
national defense (building of atomic weapons). However, ETTP was closed in 1986.
Before it was shut down, ETTP was the home of three gaseous diffusion plants: K-29, K-31, and K-33.
These facilities played a very important role in build-up and maintenance of national defense by enriching
uranium for nuclear weapons. At the time, K-25 was the largest uranium-enrichment facility in the US,
bigger even than Oak Ridge X-10.
In 1997, however, the East Tennessee Technology Park was re-opened and underwent
Re-industrialization. The aim of Re-industrialization is threefold: restoring the environment,
decontamination of abandoned facilities, and handling of legacy wastes.
East Tennessee was where the first uranium-235 were successfully separated and massively produced,
paving the way for the creation of the very first atomic bombs that ended the Second World War. While
the nuclear facilities here are no longer engaged in making atomic bombs, th