Diluting and disposing of some 34 metric tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium instead of reprocessing the material at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River Site could yield 51.3 metric tons of down-blended plutonium presumably to be emplaced at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, potentially forcing a massive reexamination of WIPP’s design basis, claims a Nov. 16 report by capital project consulting firm High Bridge Associates, Inc., which Weapons Complex Morning Briefing obtained.
Ordered by MOX contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the report states that disposing of that much plutonium at WIPP would first require revising a 1997 supplemental final environmental impact statement to allow for 51.3 more megatons of plutonium than the 6-megaton design mass that WIPP’s current design basis allows for. Furthermore, High Bridge asserts that disposing of that full amount would demand 171,000 criticality control overpacks (CCOs) be placed in the repository, and also that adding CCOs to WIPP could initially increase the average density of WIPP-emplaced plutonium by 4,200 percent. “As the salt repository closes in on the drums and the drums deteriorate, the plutonium density could likely approach 1,000 times or nearly 100,000% of that in the WIPP design basis,” the report states. “This indicates the serious impacts on WIPP criticality assumptions if the NNSA decides to go forward with the Dilute and Dispose option.”
The plutonium disposition debate has recently grown more intense, after the Red Team in August submitted to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz its recommendations for disposal, which largely favored dilution and disposal as the preferred disposition approach from the standpoints of cost and practicality. DOE Associate Secretary John MacWilliams and National Nuclear Security Administration chief Frank Klotz largely echoed those sentiments during a recent House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing, but NNSA’s official stance—as expressed through high-level officials and spokespeople—has been that it currently is following congressional direction to continue construction on the plant. CB&I AREVA MOX estimates that construction is about 70 percent finished.
As Congress continues hammering fiscal 2016 appropriations, it remains uncertain whether MOX funding will be included, reduced, or nixed from the final product. The Obama Administration requested $345 million for the project for fiscal 2016.