Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
09/11/2015
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yesterday defended ongoing construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, and countered 14 nonproliferation experts who in a Tuesday letter to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said plutonium downblending would be better for national security and the federal budget than construction of the MOX Plant at Savannah River Site. “I am disheartened that this Administration and the distinguished signatories of the letter would use such a limited perspective when evaluating a facility that has such a significant impact on our national security and environmental clean-up missions,” Wilson said in an emailed statement. “The state of South Carolina has a deal with the Department of Energy—our state accepted tens of tons of weapons grade plutonium with the understanding that the federal government had a clear path forward for disposition and eventual transfer to a permanent repository.”
The MOX facility is currently the designated pathway in an agreement with Russia for disposal of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium in each country. To designate another pathway, the two sides would have to amend the agreement in writing. MOX contractor CB&I AREVA MOX Services estimates the project is about 70 percent complete. National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter were cc’ed on the letter, whose writers included active and retired nuclear experts from the academic community, the executive branch, think tanks, and Congress.
The advocates asserted that continuing MOX and recycling work would allow plutonium recycling advocates in Japan, China, South Korea, and other states to “maintain the illusion that plutonium separation and recycle are activities that responsible non-weapon states engage in.” They added: “The United States has for four decades consistently opposed the spread of such activities because of the obvious proliferation danger of putting nuclear-weapons explosive materials into commercial channels.” The experts also said that ending MOX now would give the U.S. leverage to push Japan to hold off on opening its planned reprocessing plant at Rokkasho, as American negotiators could more credibly underscore that plutonium has no economic value.
But Wilson said shuttering MOX could deal a significant economic blow to his state. “Without the successful completion of the MOX facility, the people of South Carolina will bear the burden of storing this material until an alternative is chosen,” he said. “I urge the Administration to finish what we started and complete construction of MOX.”
Those words came about three weeks after seven members of the South Carolina congressional delegation, led by Wilson, requested in a letter to Moniz for DOE to provide them with copies of all agency communications, guidelines, and instructions to The Aerospace Corp. for preparation of a report on plutonium disposition options the company completed in April. The report published by Aerospace, which is a federally funded research and development center specializing in national security space programs, estimated that disposing of the excess plutonium at MOX would cost $47.5 billion over its life cycle, while downblending the material instead would cost $17.2 billion.
In that letter, the lawmakers accused DOE of gratuitously influencing and directing the Aerospace study, and said they were concerned that the alleged “interference” hampered the company’s ability to conduct an objective assessment. “This guidance from the Department of Energy not only skewed the findings, which clearly appear to favor one disposal option, but also violates congressional intent,” Wilson wrote in the Aug. 21 letter. The one-page letter did not offer any specific example of this interference, but stakeholders have questioned the credibility of the report by Aerospace, citing concerns about the ability of the firm—which mainly specializes in national security space studies—to evaluate a nuclear infrastructure project.
Released on Wednesday, a Sept. 3 letter from Carlsbad, N.M. Mayor Dale Janway to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) disputed former Energy Secretary and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s recent claims that the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant would have to expand and adopt new waste policies to accept the material result of downblending the excess plutonium. “The reality is that about 3 metric tons of down-blended weapons grade plutonium has already been disposed of at WIPP,” Janway wrote. “As Bill Richardson knows, because it was completed while he was Secretary of Energy, the Rocky Flats cleanup campaign included the exact same dilute and dispose recipe for Plutonium Oxides. Weapons-grade plutonium, when properly down-blended with inert materials, is transuranic waste, and falls well within WIPP’s Waste Acceptance Criteria.”
Richardson’s claims came from a separate letter he wrote to Reid in support of MOX. Richardson urged Reid to push DOE to move forward with the embattled program, accused DOE of running an “aggressive campaign against MOX,” and called the Aerospace report a “made-to-order” study.
The plutonium disposition debate has recently grown more intense, after the Red Team last month submitted to Moniz its recommendations for disposal, which largely favored plutonium downblending, or “dilution and disposal,” as the preferred disposition approach from the standpoints of cost and practicality. DOE is deciding whether it will cancel MOX and start dilution and disposal, or continue with the MOX approach.
