The National Nuclear Security Administration is finalizing a record of decision announcing its intent to prepare 6 metric tons of excess plutonium stored at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina for eventual disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, agency chief Frank Klotz said this week.
Downblending and shipments of large amounts of plutonium could begin in the mid-2020s, based on the Department of Energy’s plans to ramp up its processing capacity at Savannah River in coming years, Klotz said during a budget hearing Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. Specifically, the agency expects by that time to have installed two additional glove boxes that would boost the site’s plutonium dilution capabilities to over 1 metric ton annually.
After dealing with the initial cache of plutonium, NNSA could start processing 34 metric tons of U.S. plutonium that must be disposed of under a U.S.-Russian agreement finalized in 2010. Seven metric tons of that material is also at Savannah River, with the rest largely held at the Pantex Plant in Texas.
This material was to have been turned into fuel for nuclear reactors at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility being built at SRS, but the Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget plan calls for halting the MOX project in favor of a “dilution and disposal” method in which the plutonium if mixed with an inert material. Klotz said dilution of all the plutonium would likely occur at the Savannah River Site, after which it would be sent to WIPP.
Klotz said three DOE-mandated studies in the past year have found that the MOX program could cost $30 billion to $50 billion over its lifetime, and would need $800 million to $1 billion in annual funding for decades to advance its goal. Conversion into MOX fuel would not begin until the 2040s, and only then if Congress appropriates $1 billion in annual funding to establish the project, the retired Air Force general said.
He agreed with subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander’s (R-Tenn.) statement that the replacement system could save $500 million or more per year and expedite the schedule. Klotz also noted that the downblending method has already been used for nearly 5 metric tons of plutonium that was then sent to WIPP.
“We have done it before, we understand how to do that process,” he said.
As he has in other recent hearings, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) lashed the Department of Energy’s plan to kill the sizable MOX program in midstream. In a brief face-off with Klotz, he noted the $5 billion already spent on the conversion facility, wondered what would be done with the unfinished plant, and forced the NNSA chief to acknowledge that DOE does not yet have statutory authority to downblend and ship the 27 metric tons of plutonium now at Pantex that is covered under the U.S.-Russian deal.
He was particularly critical of the department for changing direction on plutonium processing before securing Russia’s agreement to revise the term of the bilateral agreement, which specifically calls for using the MOX method.
“That’s a lousy plan. That is absolutely the dumbest friggin’ plan I could think of, to change course and hope the Russians would agree and not know what they’re going to charge you for it,” Graham said.
The Department of Energy in December formally cited processing and shipping the 6 tons of non-pit plutonium to WIPP as its preferred method for dealing with the material. The South Carolina government last month sued DOE for failing to meet a 2003 pledge to process or remove at least 1 metric ton of plutonium from the state by Jan. 1 of this year.
Further details of the record of decision, including when it will be issued, were not immediately available.
Keeping an Eye on Spending
The NNSA, a semiautonomous arm of the Department of Energy, has requested a nearly 3 percent bump in funding for fiscal 2017, to $12.9 billion, to carry out its various missions, including sustaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal and promoting nuclear nonproliferation.
Alexander noted that the NNSA is overseeing three of the largest federal construction projects: the MOX plant, the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, and the Plutonium Facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which combined could cost over $20 billion to build.
“Over the past four years, Senator Feinstein and I have worked to keep costs from skyrocketing. We want to make sure our hard-earned taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, and that these projects are on time and on budget,” Alexander said, referring to subcommittee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
The Tennessee senator said he and Feinstein were holding NNSA to their demand that the Uranium Processing Facility be completed by 2025 for no more than $6.5 billion, and that construction only begin once the design was 90 percent complete.
Klotz said the NNSA expects design to hit the 90 percent mark close to the end of 2017. He said construction might not begin that year, but did not discuss a firm date. The agency is implementing all recommendations of a Red Team of experts to ensure it meets the cost and schedule requirement, he said.
