The Donald Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 budget proposal sustains its predecessor’s plan to terminate the Department of Energy’s Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina, a decision the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said is unrelated to carryover in leadership at his agency.
The NNSA’s $13.9 billion budget proposal includes $1.8 billion for the defense nuclear nonproliferation account, of which $279 million would go toward nonproliferation construction – a combination of MOX termination operations and research into the alternative dilute and dispose option.
Specifically, it would direct $270 million toward termination of the facility and the other $9 million to pursue the alternative. According to the NNSA’s budget justification, MOX “would require approximately $800 million to $1 billion annually for decades. It would be irresponsible to pursue this approach when a more cost-effective alternative exists.”
The MOX facility is being built to meet the U.S. obligation under a nonproliferation agreement with Russia that requires each side to eliminate 34 metric tons of nuclear weapon-usable plutonium. The Obama administration proposed instead to dilute the plutonium at existing Savannah River Site facilities and store the processed material at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, arguing this method would be far faster and cheaper. Congress, though, has resisted efforts to defund MOX construction.
Russian President Vladimir Putin withdrew his nation from the deal in October, but officials in Russia have more recently indicated a willingness to return to the bilateral agreement if the U.S. side were to adhere to the agreed-upon MOX method.
Roughly $5 billion has been spent to date on MOX. The Trump administration’s proposal to kill the project, according to the budget justification, would save $61 million and “avoid up to an additional $5 billion to $9 billion in construction costs and billions more in operating costs while disposing of the surplus plutonium more quickly.”
The Energy Department has estimated the MOX facility’s life-cycle cost at about $51 billion with a 2048 completion date (the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would cost $17.2 billion to complete), while project contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services says construction would cost $10 billion by 2029.
Under the omnibus appropriations bill that funds the government through the end of this fiscal year, the defense nuclear nonproliferation account receives $1.9 billion, including $335 million for MOX construction and up to $15 million for conceptual design activities for the dilute and dispose alternative. NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said this week that the scope and cost of specific MOX closure activities would be outlined in later budget submissions when the project’s termination plan is approved.
Asked whether the latest decision on MOX is based on the carryover in NNSA leadership from the Obama administration, Klotz said Tuesday that Trump’s senior leadership approached the issue “with a fresh set of eyes and came to the conclusion which they came to.”
An industry source, however, said this week that Obama-era holdovers leading the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency in the absence of new nominees from Trump have been a major reason the policy on MOX has not changed, despite some initial optimism from project supporters.
Klotz was asked to stay in his position temporarily under Trump, and there has been no indication yet of a replacement nominee. Robert Raines, NNSA’s associate administrator for acquisition and project management, is another key official who has remained with the agency through the transition and whose position involves oversight of project construction schedules and cost baselines.
The source said halting construction work would make it at best very difficult to restart the project in the future, should new NNSA leadership reverse course on plutonium disposal methods.
A staff aide on Capitol Hill noted by email that Congress will develop its own budget, regardless of the president’s proposal, ahead of the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1. “House and Senate authorizers and appropriators have consistently considered all options and still chosen to pursue MOX,” the aide said.
South Carolina lawmakers have strongly contested the previous and current administrations’ proposals for termination, arguing the MOX method is the only viable plutonium disposal option. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), one of the project’s vocal supporters, said this week in an emailed statement that the administration’s budget “lets down the people of South Carolina” and “puts South Carolina and Georgia at risk of being a permanent dump for nuclear waste.”
“MOX is the only facility in the nation that, when completed, would be able to convert weapons-grade plutonium into green fuel,” he said. “I also remain concerned about broader impacts to the other critical missions at the Savannah River Site.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) also said in a statement this week that Trump’s budget proposal is a “doubling-down” of former President Barack Obama’s “failed approach to MOX.”
“It violates an important international non-proliferation agreement. It also doesn’t take into consideration the legislative and regulatory changes needed to store the excess material underground. And it fails to account for the political opposition, on both sides of the aisle, that is likely to occur and will undoubtedly result in extended delays,” Graham said.
Disposal at WIPP would require regulatory action, including amending existing regulations for facility expansion and storage capability.
