The Government Accountability Office took a victory lap for a series of investigations it made into the now-cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C., saying the move saved some $13 billion.
“Construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility [MFFF], initially estimated to cost about $4.8 billion, was a key part of the Department of Energy’s approach to disposing of surplus weapons-grade plutonium,” Congress’ investigative arm wrote in a press release. “In response to [the Government Accountability Office’s] recommendation, DOE undertook more oversight reviews and found that the facility would cost billions more. The Department identified a less costly alternative and terminated the project in 2018, saving about $13 billion.”
The $13 billion that the congressional inspector quoted was the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) estimated cost to complete the MFFF as of 2018: the year the agency officially cancelled the project, which was supposed to turn 34 metric tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel.
While the Government Accountability Office’s short press release on Tuesday made no mention of the NNSA’s related plans to expand production of nuclear warhead cores to the Savannah River Site by converting the partially constructed MFFF into a plutonium-pit foundry, a look at the publicly available data shows the move may well save the NNSA money not only on construction over the next few years, but all throughout the roughly 50-year lifetimes of both the pit- and the plutonium-disposal missions.
Yup, our past work (@AtomicAuditor) supported the decision to terminate. But we are just starting our work on pit costs and schedule. Stay tuned! https://t.co/VThMUg5gcX
— Allison Bawden (@nukeoversight) November 18, 2020
At the NNSA’s last tally in 2018, an estimate from the agency’s program-independent Office of Cost Estimating and Program Evaluation, the nuclear-weapons steward estimated that MFFF would have cost some $55.5 billion to build and operate over the course of its life. On the other hand, MFFF’s replacement, the surplus plutonium disposition program, would cost about $20 billion over roughly the same life cycle. The replacement program does away with the notion of turning weapon-usable plutonium into civilian reactor fuel and instead aims to chemically weaken the fissile material and bury it deep underground at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
Right around the time NNSA was officially closing down the MFFF, the agency was also pondering how to produce at least 80 plutonium pits a year. Congress had already authorized upgrades at the Los Alamos National Laboratory that would be good for 30 pits annually, so the agency needed around 50 more pits on top of that.
NNSA quickly settled on converting the partially complete MFFF into the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility: a pit factory that by 2030 could add 50 pits a year to the 30 pits Los Alamos would begin producing annually in 2026. The bill for that is an estimated $30 billion, according to an engineering assessment produced in 2018 by Parsons. The assessment also found it could cost $15 billion to $20 billion to make 80 pits a year at Los Alamos.
So, over their lifetimes, surplus plutonium disposition and a two-state pit complex will ring in at a combined $50.5 million or so, according to those NNSA estimates from two years ago. That’s somewhere between $10 billion and $15 billion less than it would have cost to continue with MFFF, and expand the already expanding Los Alamos National Laboratory to make 80 pits annually with no help.
The NNSA’s 2017 analysis of alternatives, on the other hand, said that Los Alamos might max out at 30 pits a year, and that converting MFFF, for less than $25 billion, might be all it takes to produce 80 pits annually. The agency has since said that either planned pit plant could make 80 a year, in a crunch.
Either way — and assuming the NNSA’s math holds up as it attempts construction and training efforts unprecedented in its 20-year history, if not in the history of the weapons labs — the Government Accountability Office seems to have a point: canning MFFF opened the door for savings on two plutonium missions.
