Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/2/2015
The Obama Administration is requesting $345 million in Fiscal Year 2016 for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in what Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has called a “continuation” budget for the controversial project. The request, unveiled today, matches the amount of money Congress provided to keep construction going on the project in FY 2015 and represents a departure from the approach taken a year ago by the Administration.
Last year, the Administration said it planned to put the project in cold standby and requested only $196 million while it continued to examine other alternatives. However, led by South Carolina’s delegation, Congress balked at the decision and blocked the move to cold standby. “The Congress in the FY ‘15 budget said $345 million to build the facility and build—you must build—so we are building,” Moniz said today as the Department of Energy rolled out its budget request. “We are building slowly because $345 million, we have always said, is really not enough to pick up the pace and complete the facility in a reasonable amount of time.”
‘It’s Just at a Slower Pace’
The MOX facility is currently the designated pathway in an agreement with Russia for disposal of 34 metric tons of weapons grade plutonium in each country. What the FY16 budget request does not do is make any commitments for the program beyond this year, and Moniz said when a deeper analysis of plutonium disposition alternatives is complete, DOE will work with Congress to finalize a FY 2016 budget for the program.
NNSA Associate Administrator for Acquisition and Project Management Bob Raines said all work on the project was being done, but just not as quickly as is ideal. “We are doing all of the work we would do under a different funding level, it’s just at a slower pace,” Raines said in a call with reporters today. “There is nothing to continue the construction that we have sopped. We’re just doing a little bit less of it now than we would if we had a more robust funding profile.”
$9.1 Billion Latest Estimate for Construction
An NNSA study released last year revealed that estimated construction costs for the facility had risen to approximately $10 billion, up from a previous estimate of $7.7 billion and an earlier baseline of $4.86 billion. A more detailed follow-on study is ongoing, as is a Congressionally directed independent lifecycle cost estimate on the price tag to complete and run the MOX facility and an option to downblend and dispose of the material in a repository.
The budget documents indicate that the latest estimated cost of the entire project is $12.7 billion (which includes D&D and other costs), with $9.1 billion estimated for construction. Estimated annual operating costs also jumped from $543 million a year to $671 million a year, according to the budget documents. The budget documents also reference a recent Army Corps of Engineers study that projected the cost of the facility to be between $10 and $13 billion.
Moniz Confident in DOE Analysis
In addition to MOX, the NNSA also examined irradiating plutonium fuel in fast reactors, vitrifying the plutonium with high-level waste, downblending the plutonium and disposing of it, and storing it in deep boreholes. “The Department determined that the MOX fuel approach is significantly more expensive with a life cycle cost estimate of approximately $30 billion, even with consideration of potential contract restructuring and other improvements that have been made to the MOX project,” the Administration said in budget documents.
DOE has contracted with Aerospace Corporation to complete the Congressionally directed analysis of options, and the company toured the Savannah River Site last week as part of its work, NS&D Monitor has learned. “We’ll see what comes back,” Moniz said. “Personally I would be surprised if we would find anything that is dramatically different from our first internal analysis but that remains to be seen.”
