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.
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 said, 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 required; and where the 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 of the change in strategy, Moniz said “the discussion will have to probably be bundled with some other considerations.”
