Photo of the F Reactor April 2022.

The third of Hanford’s three original nuclear reactors is F Reactor, which is the reactor located nearest to the city of Richland, Washington. 

F Reactor became operational in February 1945 and ran until it was shut down in June 1965. Originally the reactor used about 35,000 gallons of water per minute for cooling during operations. However, as the facility expanded and became more efficient, it needed almost 70,000 gallons of water per minute to keep the heat generated by the nuclear operations under control.

In 2003, F Reactor became the third facility on the Hanford Site to transition to Interim Safe Storage, also known as “cocooning.”

The 100-F Area support facilities were fully removed by 2012. Photo of the F Reactor circa 2014.