The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to start building the replacement for the canceled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) some time after Sept. 30, 2021, according to the agency’s latest annual report on its nonproliferation programs.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon branch formally terminated construction of the Savannah River Site facility in October, after spending about $7 billion. The Surplus Plutonium Disposition project will now assume its mission to eliminate 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium, by chemically weakening the material and then mixing it with a concrete-like grout for deep-underground burial.
Construction on the MFFF, which began in 2007, should be fully shut down in the 2021 government fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, 2020, the NNSA said last week in its “Prevent, Counter, and Respond—NNSA’s Plan to Reduce Global Nuclear Threats” report. The mandatory annual report requires the agency to update Congress about programs within its roughly $2-billion-a-year Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation office.
The NNSA has said the Surplus Plutonium Disposition project, also known as dilute-and-dispose, could begin processing excess plutonium by 2028. The project would continue into the 2040s.
The House of Representatives, in appropriations and authorizations bills passed this summer, approved $79 million the NNSA requested for fiscal 2020 to procure three Surplus Plutonium Disposition glove boxes that will help dilute plutonium at Savannah River. The agency is also seeking funds for dilute-and-dispose design work in 2020, with the aim of finishing 60% of that design before the next fiscal year ends after Sept. 30, 2020.
Ultimately, the NNSA plans to send the diluted plutonium to DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for permanent disposal as transuranic waste. South Carolina’s congressional delegation, particularly senior U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has questioned whether the disposal part of the process will really happen.
New Mexico’s congressional delegation argues DOE needs to change federal law before there is enough room in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant to accommodate the downblended plutonium. The Waste Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Land Withdrawal Act of 1992 prescribes a maximum size for the mine. The administration of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has maintained that stance, even as DOE secured state approval to change the way it accounts for the volume of waste in the deep underground mine, which effectively frees up some disposal space.
The MFFF, meanwhile, will be converted into a plant to annually manufacture at least 50 fissile nuclear-weapon cores called plutonium pits by 2030, if the NNSA has its way. Republicans and Democrats in Congress are split over whether to fund that plan.
MFFF Prime Down to Near Skeleton Crew
MFFF prime MOX Services has been laying off workers steadily since the NNSA formally canceled the company’s contract to build the plutonium disposal facility in October 2018.
As the calendar flipped to August, the contractor handed out the latest pink slips, to 29 employees who will leave the job on Aug. 23, according to a recent post on the South Carolina government-affiliated website SCWorks.
That will reduce the MFFF crew to around 350 employees. MOX Services has now shed more than 1,000 workers since the NNSA officially canned the contract.
The NNSA wanted MOX Services to finish putting the plant into standby mode before December. After that, Savannah River management contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions will manage the construction site and help the agency with early plans to convert the facility into pit factory.
The NNSA has Parsons Government Services studying ways to convert the MFFF for weapons duty.
