PU STUDY FINDS WIPP DISPOSAL TO BE CHEAPEST MOX ALTERNATIVE

A long-awaited report by a Department of Energy task force examining alternatives to the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility concluded that downblending surplus plutonium and disposing of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant was determined to be the least expensive option by billions of dollars. The Plutonium Disposition Working group formed last June after DOE decided to slow down MOX construction and look for less costly options for disposing of 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium under an agreement with Russia. Downblending the plutonium and disposing of it in WIPP, which notably is shut down after a radiation release earlier this year, would cost about $8.8 billion and be completed in 2046 with less risk and uncertainty than MOX. That is $16.3 billion less than the “to go” costs for MOX, which the report estimates at $25.1 billion with a completion date of  2043 with “significant risks.”

 

While some initial shipments of plutonium not suitable for MOX have been made to WIPP, there are a number of hurdles to that option, chief among them the need to renegotiate the plutonium disposition agreement with Russia. It would also require amendments to WIPP’s Land Withdrawal Act after recent events have greatly increased scrutiny of the facility.  Other alternatives to MOX considered in the report were deep borehole disposal, which the study finds has significant uncertainty; immobilization, which would cost $28.7 billion and not be completed until 2060 with significant risks; and irradiation of plutonium fuel in fast reactors, which was estimated to cost twice as much as MOX and not be completed until 2075.