It could cost nearly $52 billion to complete the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility and run it while downblending and disposing of surplus weapons-grade plutonium would be a significantly cheaper approach, according to a recently completed study by The Aerospace Corporation. The Congressionally mandated study eclipses the Department of Energy’s own estimates for completing and running the MOX facility. The Department said it would cost about $29 billion in construction and lifecycle costs for MOX last year, well above previous estimates, though DOE’s attempts to put the plant in cold shutdown were stymied by Congress, which has successfully kept construction going on the plant. Downblending the plutonium and disposing of it would cost about $17.2 billion, the report said. The NNSA submitted the report to Congress yesterday, and while the full report is marked “Official Use Only,” NS&D Monitor obtained a one-page summary of the study.
About $4.4 billion has already been spent on building the plant, which is about 65 percent complete. The Aerospace report found there to be $47.5 billion in additional “to-go” costs to complete the project. “The Aerospace report finds that the total program life-cycle to-go costs for the MOX fuel option will be significantly higher than initially estimated,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz wrote in a letter to lawmakers yesterday that was obtained by NS&D Monitor. “The total costs and timeline are also significantly influenced by the annual rate of appropriation.”
The Aerospace report uses $500 million a year as a funding baseline for its projections. If the project was funded at $375 million a year, it would cost $114 billion, the report said. In a statement, Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for CB&I Project Services Group, said the contractor “vigorously” disagrees with the report’s findings. The figures are “inaccurate and unsubstantiated,” he said. “By our calculations, it will take an additional $3.3 billion to complete the project, and it will be done in 5-9 years, depending on the amount of annual funding appropriations. It is also calculated to cost $8 billion to operate the plant over its 20-year cycle. There is over $1.5 billion in equipment on site and ready to install. Most equipment for the facility has been purchased, so it will be mostly labor costs from here on out.”
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