Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week he disapproves of the Obama administration’s proposal to nix the MOX program and move forward with a downblending alternative for disposal of surplus plutonium. Putin said the switch, which was part of President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget, violates a bilateral 2000 agreement that requires each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium.
The U.S. originally chose MOX, which would convert the plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel. Now, the federal governments wants to terminate the project, which includes the Savannah River Site’s unfinished Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF). The Energy Department said last year the troubled project carries a life-cycle cost of $51 billion – three times the original $17 billion estimate. The successor plan, to dilute the plutonium using SRS facilities and dispose of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico, would only cost $17 billion, according to DOE.
But the U.S. has not formally consulted with Russia on the change, and Putin cited the decision as a reason his government did not participate in the recent Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. Putin said that by moving forward with downblending, the U.S. “preserve(s) what is known as the breakout potential, in other words it can be retrieved, reprocessed and converted into weapons-grade plutonium again. This is not what we agreed on.”
He added that Russia will have to think about how to respond to the development. He also used a press conference to note Russia’s progress in the international agreement by using a fast-reactor approach to dispose of the plutonium. Under the process, plutonium-based weapons would be broken down into plutonium metal and used to charge a casting furnace. The plutonium would then be blended with uranium and zirconium in the fast reactor, creating a metal fuel out of the weapon-grade material.
“We signed this agreement and settled on the procedures for the material’s destruction, agreed that this would be done on an industrial basis, which required the construction of special facilities. Russia fulfilled its obligations in this regard and built these facilities, but our American partners did not,” he said.
Putin’s comments generated a quick response from two MOX supporters: South Carolina Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott. The two sent a letter Friday to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, stating that Putin’s comments validate their belief that MOX should be the continued path forward. The two added that the switch to downblending “has not been fully vetted, does not have validated cost estimates, [and] has numerous unanswered technical questions.”
