Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is laying the groundwork to acquire the three custom-built gloveboxes needed for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Surplus Plutonium Disposition program: the proposed replacement for the cancelled Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility.
Under the currently unfunded and unauthorized program, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would install the gloveboxes at Savannah River Site’s K-Area, where they would help prepare 34 metric tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium for permanent underground burial.
With Congress closer than ever to approving the Surplus Plutonium Disposition program, the Fluor-led Savannah River nuclear Solutions (SRNS) has released a request for information that potential glovebox vendors must respond to by June 21. An SRNS spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that the request is related to the Surplus Plutonium Disposition program.
SRNS anticipates an award early in the government’s 2020 fiscal year, which barring a sudden legislative push outside the annual authorization and appropriations processes is the soonest Congress could approve Surplus Plutonium Disposition.
NNSA requested $79 million for Surplus Plutonium Disposition in the 2020 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The program would rid the U.S. nuclear stockpile of 34 metric tons of surplus, weapon-usable plutonium that Washington vowed to get rid of in 2000 as part of a reciprocal materials-reduction pact with Russia.
NNSA has fought since the Barack Obama administration to replace the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility with what is now called Surplus Plutonium Disposition. Congress long resisted the change, but key lawmakers have come around this year, green-lighting the program in draft 2020 appropriations and authorization bills.
Under Surplus Plutonium Disposition, also called dilute-and-dispose, NNSA plans to chemically weaken surplus plutonium and mix it with concrete-like grout called stardust at Savannah River. Then, DOE would bury the mixture at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, N.M.
Surplus Plutonium Disposition will come online in 2028, according to an NNSA roadmap, and take until the 2040s to process all 34 metric tons of plutonium. MFFF would have turned the plutonium into commercial reactor fuel. NNSA cancelled MFFF in October, citing increasing costs.
New Mexico’s congressional delegation has said Congress may need to change federal law before NNSA can bury the 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
