South Carolina stakeholders for the Savannah River Site denounced Monday a potential plan to process 34 metric tons of plutonium and ship it to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M., for permanent storage.
That “dilute and dispose” option is the Department of Energy’s preferred approach for dealing with the plutonium, rather than continuing forward with construction and operation of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at SRS. In its fiscal 2019 budget proposal, released Monday, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) requested $220 million to close down the MOX project and $59 million to advance dilute and dispose.
But skeptics that evening offered a number of reasons why WIPP should not be used to store the plutonium: lack of storage space at the facility, unknown costs associated with the project, and a high number of safety protocols DOE would have to address before shipping and storing the material.
A handful of people representing different organizations spoke at a meeting in Columbia, S.C., of a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee of experts formed in December to study the issue. The panel will eventually offer an opinion to Congress regarding WIPP’s suitability to house the downblended plutonium.
Rick Lee, chairman of the South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council (GNAC), told the NAS committee that disposing of the material at WIPP would be “extremely problematic” because it would require the Energy Department to expand the New Mexico facility more than already planned. In addition, Lee said, WIPP would need to be relicensed to account for the diluted stockpiles, which would take even more time.
Added Jim Marra, a former scientist at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and with DOE’s Office of Environmental Management: “It’s going to take some time to look at this option and decide if this truly the best pathway forward,” he told the committee. “I think dilute and disposal has some homework before it can be considered a viable option.”
