Former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) on Monday laid into a report commissioned by the Department of Energy’s lead MOX fuel facility contractor that questioned the suitability of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as a storage site for downblended plutonium.
In a commentary sent to media outlets, Domenici charged that CB&I AREVA MOX Services is using “junk science” in making its case to sustain construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget proposal calls for canceling the MOX program in favor of using existing facilities at SRS to dilute surplus nuclear weapon-usable plutonium and then storing the material at the transuranic waste storage site in New Mexico. DOE says the new plan will save years and tens of billions of dollars in dealing with the plutonium.
High Bridge, in a report issued last month, warned that over time the salt caverns in which the waste at WIPP is stored could close in on the plutonium containers, potentially causing a “critical chain reaction.” The DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories, in reviewing an executive summary of the High Bridge report, said the chain reaction scenario was “not credible.”
“Objective research on all of America’s nuclear facilities remains a high priority with all of us that have fought for nuclear energy all of our careers,” stated Domenici, now a senior fellow with the Bipartisan Policy Center. “My work with the national laboratories gives me great confidence that when they reject a study, they are doing it in an objective and data-driven manner.”
CB&I AREVA MOX Services and High Bridge Associates had not responded to requests for comment on Domenici’s commentary by press time Monday.
