WC Monitor
2/05/2016
WIPP Versus MOX Debate Continues in New Mexico Paper
An op-ed debate over storing diluted plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) continued over the weekend, with an executive from a consulting firm that authored a 2015 study backing an alternative disposal method arguing against interment at the Carlsbad, N.M. facility.
“Proposals to dispose of excess weapons plutonium at WIPP would require years of environmental, safety and operational analysis, and the regulatory process could open WIPP operations to potential licensing changes that put at risk the very important mission it currently conducts,” Kenneth Aupperle, vice president of High Bridge Associates, of Greensboro, Ga., wrote in Saturday commentary in the Carlsbad Current-Argus.
Aupperle was referring to 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium the U.S. plans to turn into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for commercial reactors under an arms control pact with Russia finalized. The conversion depends on completing the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) now under construction at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The facility has fallen out of favor with the Obama administration.
In September, High Bridge Associates published a report that said MOX refining was, at $19 billion, about $1 billion cheaper than diluting the fuel elsewhere at Savannah River and storing it at WIPP. The High Bridge report was paid for by one of the parent companies of the joint venture DOE contracted to build and operate MFFF. CB&I AREVA MOX Services is a partnership of CB&I and AREVA North America, the U.S. arm of French nuclear power company AREVA.
High Bridge’s conclusion is at odds with an April report from Pentagon-funded, El Segundo, Calif.-based Aerospace Corp., which said disposing of the downblended material at WIPP would cost $17 billion over its lifetime, compared to a $51 billion life-cycle projection for the MOX option. A DOE-led report published in August also supported the WIPP option, claiming MOX fabrication is not feasible unless DOE’s budget is increased.
Aupperle’s piece follows a pro-WIPP-disposal commentary published last month in the Current-Argus by John Heaton, a former New Mexico state representative who is now chair of the Carlsbad Mayor’s Nuclear Task Force. Heaton’s piece was a rebuttal to a Jan. 11 Las Cruces Sun-News piece in which former New Mexico Governor and U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson came out strongly against storing the diluted weapons plutonium at WIPP.
DOE Seeks Ideas for Follow-on WIPP Waste Transportation Contract
With existing fixed-price, waste-hauling contracts set to expire in 2017, the Department of Energy said this week it is seeking ideas — but not yet bids — for a follow-on deal to transport contaminated material to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M.
The eventual contract will be for transporting “transuranic wastes and mixed hazardous constituents, including polychlorinated biphenyls and asbestos, between various DOE sites across the country and other defense-related [transuranic] waste generator sites” to WIPP, DOE wrote in a request for information.
Vendors will provide the tractors and DOE will provide the trailers, according to the agency’s sources sought notice. Replies are due Feb. 18, DOE said. More information can be found here.
