Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on Tuesday offered strong support for a new plutonium dilution and disposal method in place of the mixed oxide fuel program that the Obama administration is pushing to cancel, calling the latter an essentially “impossible” effort.
The controversy over the MOX program will be one of the next administration’s primary challenges within the nuclear enterprise, Moniz said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site is intended to dispose of 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium under a U.S. nonproliferation agreement with Russia.
The U.S. House and Senate both requested approval for $340 million to continue the MOX project in their versions of the National Defense Authorization Act, but the Obama administration has proposed canceling the program in favor of an alternative downblending method featuring dilution of the plutonium at SRS and disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. The Senate energy and water appropriations bill that passed in May provides $270 million for MOX construction, while the seemingly moribund House version would allocate $340 million.
Moniz called the MOX approach a “practically speaking impossible task,” in part because “it’s way too expensive.” Projections for the entire MOX program life cycle cost range from $50 billion to $60 billion, he said. “There is no way that Congress is going to commit a billion dollars a year for half a century to dispose of 34 tons of plutonium,” Moniz added, calling the dilution and disposal alternative a “much more sensible approach.”
This alternative, he said, would cost an estimated $15 billion to $20 billion over its life cycle. Even so, Moniz acknowledged that some issues remain, including whether the alternative method would be irreversible, as required by the agreement; whether Russia would approve of a change of the U.S. method, as also mandated; and where the processed plutonium would be sent for disposal.
WIPP could only hold another 13 tons of plutonium under its current license structure, he said, meaning the facility would either need to change its acceptance criteria or a new disposal facility would need to be built.
The political challenge with Russia, he said, is that “right now we don’t know that there would be a yes coming.” Asked about next steps in the event that Russia does not approve the change in strategy, Moniz said “the discussion will have to probably be bundled with some other considerations.”
The revised plutonium disposal program has its share of critics, led by South Carolina’s congressional delegation.
Kevin Bishop, spokesman for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), said by email that DOE’s “short-sighted” plan to change direction on MOX “has not been fully vetted, does not have validated cost estimates, has numerous unanswered technical questions and leads to the permanent orphaning of at least 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium – enough for thousands of warheads.”
“DOE’s short-sighted efforts to kill MOX have allowed Russian President Putin – who is no friend of the United States and our foreign policy objectives – to claim the high ground about living up to international agreements,” Bishop said, noting that Graham will continue to work toward continuation of the MOX program.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) said that with the MOX facility being over 70 percent complete, “measurable progress on the MOX facility is clear and it is in the interest of the American people to complete it.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently concluded that the MOX facility is only 27 percent complete, but MOX contractor CB&I AREVA MOX upheld the 70 percent figure, basing it on physical construction rather than the building cost.
“Sadly, the federal government has a habit of starting and abandoning large scale projects—to the detriment of states, like South Carolina, who agreed to accept nuclear material with the understanding it would be processed in a timely and effective manner,” Wilson said in a prepared statement. “Ending construction on the MOX facility would leave South Carolina as a dumping ground for nuclear waste.”
The future of MOX funding remains unclear, as a congressional conference committee is still reconciling the House and Senate versions of the defense authorization bill.
