The Department of Energy is months late in providing Congress with a mandatory annual report on the MOX program at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to documents released Thursday.
SRS Watch, a local nuclear watchdog, submitted a Freedom of Information Act request on March 15 asking DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to provide the annual report, which generally provides project completion percentages, workflow data, and other information regarding the unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF).
The plant is being built to enable the United States to meet its commitment under a 2000 agreement with Russia that requires each nation to convert 34 metric tons of surplus nuclear weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel.
The annual report is supposed to be submitted by Feb. 15 of each year, per the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act. The NNSA told SRS Watch in a letter dated May 10 that the agency’s Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation has not started work on the latest version.
“The program intends to begin drafting a 2016/2017 report when a budget and/or a decision has been made by the new Administration regarding plutonium disposition,” according to the letter.
For years, the Obama administration DOE sought to shutter the program due to rising costs and missed deadlines. Originally slated to cost $17 billion, the Energy Department now believes the program will cost $51 billion, prompting the prior administration for fiscal 2017 to propose switching plutonium disposal methods. The federal government instead wants to dilute the plutonium at Savannah River and dispose of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, N.M.
Despite federal opposition to the project, support for the MOX project has been voiced by lawmakers, primarily those from South Carolina. U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, and U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, all Republicans from the state, have said numerous times that MOX is the only viable option for plutonium disposal, and that switching to the DOE alternative would be a waste of time and money.
In a prepared statement on Thursday, Wilson said: “I am confident that any future report will include an unbiased, complete rebaselining that fully considers the merits of the MOX facility and the fact that construction is over 70 percent complete. I am encouraged by the continued construction language for MOX in the FY 2017 budget, and look forward to working with the Secretary and my colleagues to demonstrate the importance of MOX in the FY2018 budget.”
There was no immediate comment on the report Thursday from the NNSA.
The projected cost of the project, and the amount of work already completed, have been heavily debated. While the Energy Department believes it will cost $51 billion, including the $5 billion already spent, lawmakers have backed a $17 billion estimate put forth by CB&I AREVA MOX Services, the contractor in charge of construction. DOE says the project is roughly 28 percent complete, based on the projected cost to finish the project; CB&I says it is 70 percent complete, based on how much work is left to complete.
The Trump administration has not stated its intentions on MOX, though it could do so this month in its full budget request for fiscal 2018. In the meantime, the congressional budget omnibus approved last week for the current budget year would provide $335 million for MOX construction, but also $15 million for planning and design operations for the plutonium dilution and disposal alternative.
While SRS Watch agrees MOX is too costly, Director Tom Clements is still calling for an updated report. “No matter the ultimate fate of the badly bungled MOX project, DOE has dodged its legally mandated obligation to produce an annual report detailing the status of MOX plant construction and if the facility can ever be made operable,” Clements wrote in a press release.
