Language in House E&W Bill Called ‘Unnecessarily Restrictive’ by Administration
Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
5/1/2015
The Obama Administration is continuing to try to distance itself from the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, objecting this week to language in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2016 Energy and Water Appropriations Act that would keep construction on the controversial facility going in FY 2016. Calling the language “unnecessarily restrictive,” the Administration said in a Statement of Administration Policy that the bill would “preclude alternative, and potentially more cost-effective, approaches to implementing U.S. commitments in the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement and its 2010 annex to dispose of excess weapons plutonium.”
The House version of the bill fully funds the MOX project at $345 million in FY 2016 and contains a provision prohibiting the Administration from using that money to put the project into cold standby. With construction and lifecycle costs rising, the Administration tried to put the project in cold standby last year, but Congress blocked the move, requiring construction to continue. Two additional studies of MOX alternatives were performed, including a study released last week by The Aerospace Corporation that suggested the lifecycle cost of the project would be $52 billion if funding was steady at $500 million a year. The study also said that downblending and disposing of the 34 metric tons of plutonium would cost approximately $17.2 billion. “DOE contracted for an independent validation of costs for plutonium disposition alternatives in accordance with congressional mandates. The results of that analysis will inform the Administration’s approach to plutonium disposition,” the Administration said.
Moniz: MOX Still Expensive Even if Funding Was Increased
Even if funding constraints on the project were lifted, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this week that lifecycle costs for MOX could reach into the “high $30 billions.” Moniz said the Department of Energy had “informally” looked at the implications of relaxing the $500 million funding cap used in the Aerospace study. “This has been our problem since the beginning—that cap then spreads the project out so long that it builds up,” Moniz said during an exchange with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). A funding profile of more than $500 million “does lower the life-cycle cost significantly, but it is still in the high $30 billions,” he said. If the project was funded at $375 million a year, it would cost another $114 billion on top of the $4.4 billion already spent on construction, the Aerospace report said.
Moniz hasn’t backed away from The Aerospace Corporation findings, noting that the Department wanted to be transparent and data driven and that “sometimes the results aren’t so pretty.” He said the study incorporated a lot of risk management contingency into its estimate on top of the constraints put in place by the $500 million funding cap. The lifecycle costs of the project include not just building the facility but also other components of the U.S. plutonium disposition program, including pit disassembly and conversion and the cost to operate the facility as it turns 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel.
MOX Services President Promises Facility Will be Built
With debate about MOX heating up, CB&I AREVA MOX Services President David Del Vecchio urged employees to remain focused and promised that the facility would be built in a message April 24 obtained by NS&D Monitor. “I have faith that the MOX Project will be completed and I have faith in each and every one of you as you perform your duties competently and safely,” Del Vecchio wrote. “I see the hard work you do every day and I see your commitment to this project. The MFFF will be built, it will be built well, and will be built safely.”
Del Vecchio suggested that a different standard was used for the estimated cost of other projects. He said the $47 billion estimate, which was based on a $500 million a year funding profile, included costs to build MOX, but also pit disassembly and conversion operations, the cost of building and running the Waste Solidification Building, reactor modifications, H Canyon operations, security and transportation, Los Alamos National Laboratory work on plutonium disposition, and other work over a 15- to 20-year period. “DOE and NNSA use a different standard for other projects, currently built or being built,” he wrote. “In other words, we have been singled out for this enormous life cycle cost standard and cost figure … while other projects only have the cost to construct the facility itself as its total cost.”
