The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has begun analyzing whether the Energy Department’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico would be a viable facility for storage of plutonium that would be downblended at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
In its fiscal 2017 budget, Congress mandated that the nongovernmental research organization conduct a study to determine if WIPP could house downblended plutonium – diluted using inhibitor materials to convert it into a form that cannot be used to make nuclear weapons.
To assess WIPP’s viability, the National Academy formed a committee of 13 experts, ranging from Department of Energy officials to college professors who specialize in applicable fields such as chemistry and environmental health. The committee has started a fact-gathering campaign on the plutonium and on WIPP.
The material in question is 34 metric tons of plutonium that must be eliminated under a 2000 U.S.-Russian nonproliferation deal. For now, the U.S. pathway is to convert the plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. But the plant being built at the Savannah River Site for that purpose, the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), is at risk of cancellation by DOE after falling years behind schedule and projected to cost billions more than anticipated.
The facility was expected to cost $4.6 billion when construction began in 2007, with a total project cost of $17 billion. Now, the Department of Energy believes it will cost $17 billion just to build the MFFF and $51 billion to complete the entire project. The department says downblending has a life-cycle cost of $17 billion. Those figures have been contested by project contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services, which forecasts the MOX life-cycle cost at $19 billion and downblending at $20 billion.
Based on its numbers, DOE intends to abandon MOX and move forward with downblending using existing facilities at the Savannah River Site. The department believes that, in addition to the cost savings, the dilution method cut the timeline to complete the program from 2051 to 2046.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have battled over the project for years, with the Senate’s latest energy budget supporting the Trump administration’s request for funds to wind down work and the House providing financing to continue construction. In any case, short-term budgets that are keeping the federal government open well into the new fiscal year (which began Oct. 1) also keep construction going.
Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences to assess DOE’s plans to ship, receive, and store the processed plutonium, all within the scope of WIPP’s current and future operations. The facility stores transuranic waste from SRS and other DOE facilities, but also holds smaller amounts of plutonium. Part of the National Academy’s work will involve ensuring the downblended material is suitable for WIPP storage.
The National Academy is also looking into how easily WIPP could mine more storage panels to house the downblended material, and if the processed plutonium would be in compliance with safety and regulatory standards.
National Academies senior program officer Jennifer Heimberg, the project’s study director, said work began last week with a three-day data-gathering session. The group heard from several presenters, including officials from DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), members of congressional appropriations committees, and waste officials within the Energy Department.
Heimberg said the NAS can’t comment on the sessions yet since the group is still in the early stages of its work. In the early part of next year, potentially by January, the NAS representatives will tour facilities at the Savannah River Site that would be involved in the plutonium dilution. SRS is already downblending 6 metric tons of plutonium for a separate mission.
The NAS will also schedule a public meeting to hear from stakeholders on the matter. The group, in late 2018, will present a list of conclusions and recommendations to Capitol Hill, according to Heimberg. “Right now, we’re in a data gathering mode and reaching out to multiple parties,” she said.
