The Department of Energy will need until the mid-2020s to achieve the capacity to downblend significant amounts of plutonium now held at the Savannah River Site (SRS), the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration told lawmakers on Wednesday.
Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz again touted the benefits of the Obama administration’s plan to kill the program to turn excess plutonium into mixed-oxide reactor fuel in favor of a “dilution and disposal” alternative.
Klotz said multiple reviews have found that the downblending approach could save $500 million or more annually compared to the MOX project at SRS, which DOE says would need $800 million to $1 billion annually over a period of decades, for a total cost of $30 billion to $50 billion or more..
The department plans to ramp up the existing plutonium processing capacity at SRS in coming years, including installation of two glove boxes that would increase the dilution capability to over 1 metric ton per year by the middle of the next decade, Klotz said. “So that’s when we could really seriously begin moving the 6 metric tons” to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, he said.
The NNSA chief was referring to 6 metric tons of plutonium stored at SRS that is not included in a U.S.-Russian deal that requires each nation to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium. DOE is finalizing a record of decision announcing the move to prepare that 6 tons for ultimate disposal at WIPP under existing statutory authority, Klotz said.
That 34-metric-ton cache — 7 metric tons of which is at Savannah River and the rest largely at the Pantex Plant in Texas, Klotz said — would be dealt with afterward at SRS.
By contrast, the MOX approach would not begin processing the first metric ton of plutonium until the 2040s, and only if Congress provides about $1 billion per year in funding, Klotz said.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) again lambasted the DOE plan — among a host of complaints, noting the $5 billion spent to date on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, questioning what would be done with the unfinished plant, and expressing low regard for DOE’s approach in changing the plutonium processing program before securing Russian approval for amending the terms of the bilateral agreement.
“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.
