Klotz to Visit SRS Next Week, Tour MOX, Tritium Facilities

National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz next week will make his second visit in two months to the Savannah River Site, this time traveling there without Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. Klotz was among a delegation that visited the site in late July with Moniz, but he’ll be back at the site Sept. 24 to tour construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and the site’s tritium operations. Notably, the visit comes a week before the start of Fiscal Year 2015, when the Administration had said it planned to put the MOX facility into “cold standby.” The Administration has since backed off those plans due to Congressional action to keep construction going when the fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but because a short-term Continuing Resolution is expected to fund the government through Dec. 11 at FY 2014, the path forward for the project remains unclear and the Administration hasn’t provided any details about its plans.