Staff Reports
NS&D Monitor
1/22/2016
Congressional advocates of the nation’s MOX program this week denounced one of the alternatives to the project because it includes the use of a facility that has been shut down since 2014 due to safety incidents. On Tuesday, U.S. Reps. Joe Wilson (R–S.C.) and Rick Allen (R–Ga.) toured the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) under construction at the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C. The MFFF is an integral part of the overall MOX project, which would convert 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel.
An August report by a DOE “Red Team” of experts concluded that the MOX program would need $800 million a year to be successful – more than double the $340 million that is currently funding the project. Based on the report and similar projections, Congress authorized Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to further study a downblending alternative. Also known as the "dilute and disposal" method, the approach would use inhibitor materials to dilute the plutonium at SRS. Then, the final solution would be shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, N.M.
But Wilson and Allen believe the downblending method is a lost cause because of past issues at the transuranic waste storage site.
On Feb. 5, 2014, a salt haul truck caught fire in the WIPP mine. Workers were evacuated, the underground portion of WIPP was shut down, and six workers were treated for smoke inhalation, DOE reported. Nine days later, a continuous air monitor alarmed during the night shift. Officials learned that an above-ground exhaust air monitor on the WIPP site had detected very low levels of airborne radioactive contamination.
The facility has been shut down ever since, but DOE has said it expects WIPP to reopen this year. Still, Allen said he believes shipping the diluted plutonium to the facility opens up another set of risks. "There are so many safety concerns and you just cannot have a plutonium issue. It’s just not in the cards. So you have to be assured that that can’t happen," Allen said. Wilson added that he and Allen learned during Tuesday’s tour that it would take $500 million to shut down the MOX facility – funds they believe could be used to continue construction of the MFFF. "A lot of people don’t realize how costly and counterproductive shutting down the MOX facility would be," Wilson said.
He added that under the current plutonium disposition agreement with Russia, the U.S. selected MOX as the pathway to dispose of the material. Switching to downblending would require more negotiations with Russia – an event Wilson said the U.S. should avoid. He added that switching to downblending could leave South Carolina holding unwanted plutonium after the material is diluted at SRS. Wilson likened South Carolina’s plutonium plight to Yucca Mountain – the Nevada site intended to house the nation’s nuclear waste before the federal government nixed the project in 2010. The call to end the project left taxpayers unhappy, including South Carolinians who helped fund $13 billion of work. "It is a bipartisan concern that the shocking example of Yucca Mountain could leave South Carolina as a permanent repository of high-level weapons grade plutonium," Wilson said.
Advocacy for the MOX program has been met with naysayers who believe the project is too costly. Similar to the Red Team report, Moniz said in June that it would take $1 billion per year to make significant progress with the MOX project. That is more than Congress is likely willing to pay, according to Moniz. Furthermore, Part 1 of an Aerospace Corp. study released in April concluded that downblending the material would cost $17 billion over its lifetime, compared to a $51 billion lifecycle projection for MOX. The figures were disputed by High Bridge Associates, a company that the board of directors for CB&I, the parent company to the MOX contractor, hired to conduct a study. High Bridge reported in September that downblending would cost $20 billion, compared to $19 billion for MOX. To date, about $5 billion has spent on the MOX project.
