Officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be in New Ellenton, S.C., on April 18 to discuss the agency’s latest performance evaluation of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.
The regulator gave a largely positive review of 2016 operations at the plant intended to process 34 metric tons of excess nuclear weapon-capable plutonium for use as commercial nuclear reactor fuel.
Site construction and operations contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services earned strong marks for its construction program and oversight from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2016. Specifically, NRC officials determined that “construction activities were consistent with NRC rules and regulations as well as the conditions of the MOX construction authorization,” according to an agency press release Monday.
The findings stood in contrast to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s fiscal 2016 performance evaluation for the contractor, which received a “satisfactory” rating and just 8.9 percent of its award fee, $267,000 of the $3 million that was available for the budget year ended Sept. 30. CB&I AREVA MOX Services fired back that the NNSA scorecard reflected the agency’s ongoing efforts to terminate the project in favor of an alternative plutonium disposal method.
The NRC did note Monday that it would conduct a follow-up inspection after identifying a Severity Level III violation connected to CB&I AREVA’s acquisition of certain safety-related gear.
The NRC open house is scheduled for one hour next Tuesday beginning at 6 p.m. at the Garden Conference Room of the Applied Research Center, 301 Gateway Drive in New Ellenton. Agency staffers will not provide an official presentation, but will answer questions and offer information regarding the NRC’s oversight of the MOX plant.
