Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
4/3/2015
Two members of the House Armed Services Committee, including South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, are voicing concerns about the National Nuclear Security Administration’s decision to use The Aerospace Corporation to conduct a study on alternatives to the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. In a March 25 letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, obtained by NS&D Monitor, Wilson and Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) said they were “perplexed” by the decision to select Aerospace, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center sponsored by the Air Force. “We fail to understand why DOE did not choose a FFRDC that has broader expertise in nuclear materials disposition and nuclear construction,” Wilson and Brady wrote. “This decision seems comparable to selecting a nuclear engineering company to review a satellite program at the Department of Defense.”
The lawmakers also suggested the company’s work on the B61-12 life extension program represents a conflict of interest. “We understand that Aerospace is currently providing engineering advisory support for the B61 gravity bomb life-extension program; a program whose funding would be boosted by redirecting funds intended for the MOX project to the nuclear weapons modernization program,” they wrote. “We question whether Aerospace can conduct a fair and unbiased study in light of its role in the B61 program.” The NNSA said it would respond to the lawmakers, but declined to comment publicly until then, according to spokeswoman Shelley Laver.
Wilson, Brady Want MOX to Continue
The Aerospace study was required by Congress in the Fiscal Year 2015 omnibus appropriations act, and is to provide a cost-benefit analysis of the MOX project versus one of four other options considered in a DOE study last year: dilution and disposition. A separate study is also looking at all other options to MOX, and that study is expected to be completed in September.
DOE and NNSA attempted to put the MOX project in cold standby last year due to rising costs but Congress balked, boosting funding for the program and requiring construction to continue. “Although alternatives are being studied, our hope is to stay the course on the MOX project and ensure that work continues,” Wilson and Brady wrote. “… Canceling the MOX project and pursuing any alternative to it will have significant and far reaching consequences on jobs, the local and national economy, national security, our international obligations with Russia, and the future of the Savannah River Site.”
Will Studies Come Up With Anything Different on MOX?
The Obama Administration requested $345 million in Fiscal Year 2016 as a placeholder for the controversial MOX project, matching the level at which Congress funded the program in FY 2015, while the reviews are conducted. Earlier this year, Moniz said he didn’t expect the studies to reveal significant differences from the Department’s own MOX study, which was completed last year. That study revealed that estimated construction costs for the facility had risen to approximately $10 billion, up from a previous estimate of $7.7 billion and an earlier baseline of $4.86 billion. “We’ll see what comes back,” Moniz said. “Personally I would be surprised if we would find anything that is dramatically different from our first internal analysis but that remains to be seen.”
FY 2016 budget documents indicate that the latest estimated cost of the entire project is $12.7 billion (which includes D&D and other costs), with $9.1 billion estimated for construction. Estimated annual operating costs also jumped from $543 million a year to $671 million a year, according to the budget documents. The budget documents also reference a recent Army Corps of Engineers study that projected the cost of the facility to be between $10-$13 billion.
