The Obama administration is requesting $575 million in fiscal 2017 to continue design work and bolster other activities on the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee.
The funding request is a significant bump-up from the current appropriation of $430 million.
Based on Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz’s budget presentation, the increase in the annual allotment, $145 million, will apparently accelerate some activities.
The National Nuclear Security Administration has said the cost range for UPF is between $4.2 billion and $6.5 billion. A detailed cost estimate is not expected until the project’s design is 90 percent completed.
The budget documents indicated the figures being used in planning are near the high end of the cost range.
According to the NNSA budget document, the fiscal 2017 funding “will be used to complete facility designs and for construction of approved subprojects.”
The budget documents indicate that four subprojects were added to the UPF project but there was no change in the total project scope from the fiscal 2016 report. According to the budget progression in the spending document, funding for Oak Ridge site would increase to $620 million for fiscal 2018 and the next two years.
Construction of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 will add about 160,000 square feet of new buildings to the Oak Ridge plant’s footprint and allow the eventual replacement of functions in the 70-year-old uranium complex known as 9212. UPF will replace some of the activities currently done in 9212, such as enriched uranium casting and chemical processing of enriched uranium.
According to the budget document, the demolition of 9212 and other old buildings is not considered to be part of the UPF project.
Bob Raines, the NNSA’s associate administrator for acquisition and project management, said the “majority” of the plus-up in funding for UPF would be used to advance the project design. Raines said the NNSA’s target is to complete the design so the contractor can baseline the three large buildings that will form the project’s central base.
The construction-related tasks in the near-term planning for UPF will be associated with four new subprojects, Raines said, indicating that primary construction will begin in fiscal 2018.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee and one of the biggest supporters of the Uranium Processing Facility, said he plans to hold hearings in March on the proposed budget for the Department of Energy and UPF.
Asked for comment on the Obama administration’s request for $575 million for UPF in 2017, Alexander provided a noncommittal statement: “The Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee I chair will hold budget hearings in March to examine the Department of Energy’s budget request, including funds proposed for the Uranium facility. We will work to ensure taxpayer funds are spent effectively and efficiently.”
