Photo: The heart of the MOX boondoggle cover-up: $17 billion MOX plant at Savannah River Site (SRS), terminated in 2018
©High Flyer, special to SRS Watch - photo can be used with this credit - photos not posted by DOE at www.srs.gov or www.energy.gov
The U.S . Department of Enegy's Efforts to Carry Out the $47.5+ Billion Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Project Failed and DOE and Congress Continue Covering Up what Happened with the MOX Debacle at the Savannah River Site - Investigations Needed!
Business at its Ugly Usual with DOE and Congress: There is Still No Accountability to the Tax-Paying Public for the U.S. DOE's Grossly Mismanaged Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Project, a Textbook Case of Big Government's Inability to Manage a Costly, Complex Project.
When will Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Congress act to hold those responsible accountable for the failed MOX project? Managers with the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and MOX contractor CB&I Areva MOX Services must be held accountable for bungling the project and wasting our money. Without accountability for the MOX boondoggle the liklihood of a repeat with the proposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant looms large.
Investigations into fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement are urgently needed before "repurposing" the partially finished MOX building into an Plutonium Bomb Plant (for production of plutonium "pits" for new nuclear weapons).
If you have information about problems with the MOX boondoggle and the resulting cover-up, please get in touch: srswatch@gmail.com
--------
SAVANNAH RIVER SITE WATCH
--- working for the public interest by monitoring activities at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina and other DOE and commercial nuclear projects in the southeastern U.S. region and beyond & striving to halt proliferation of weapons-usable materials ---
1112 Florence Street, Columbia, South Carolina 29201 USA
tel. 1-803-834-3084, srswatch@gmail.com
- unsolicited documents informational in nature are welcome, particularly related to "waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement" with SRS projects -
SRS Watch News
U.S. Department of Energy Admits Design Problems with Controversial New Plutonium Bomb Plant at Savannah River Site as Cost Surges to a Stunning $25 Billion, Likely Most Expensive Building in U.S. History
Anticipated DOE Funding Requests for SRS Plutonium Pit Plant, Key to New Nuclear Warheads,
Read MoreNuclear Regulatory Commission Paves Way for Increase in Production of Tritium for Nuclear Weapons, Further Undermining Nuclear Non-Proliferation Norms and Keeping U.S. on Nuclear War Footing
SRS Watch news, February 23, 2024: SRS Watch news tritium production by TVA Feb 23 2024
NRC’s Federal Register notice of February 24,
Read MoreNuclear Reactor Construction Debacle: SRS Watch Views New Nuclear Reactors at Vogtle Site in Georgia
Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle: new Westinghouse AP1000 reactors – unit 4 on left (under criticality testing) and unit 3 on right (operating), reactor buildings are white, at the base of the cooling towers – photo ©SRS Watch
On February 18, 2024, SRS Watch accompanied two journalists to the sites of the new nuclear reactor construction debacle in South Carolina and Georgia: VC Summer and Vogtle.
Read MoreThe summary “Performance Evaluation Report” (PER) for the nuclear weapons programs at the Savannah River Site confirm that a special “Tiger Team” has reviewed documents for the planning of the proposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant and that the team is helping implement new design and cost plans. Deployment of a Tiger Team,
Read MoreThe federal environmental lawsuit brought by public interest groups asking for the court to order DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to prepare a “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” (PEIS) on all aspects of plutonium pit production and radioactive waste disposal is on a new schedule, as issued by the judge in Columbia South Carolina on December 19,
Read More
Emails Obtained from the Department of Energy via a Freedom of Information Act request Reveal Frantic Interactions with Germany in Misguided Attempt to Import Highly Radioactive Waste to DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina, for Processing and Dumping
Internal U.S.
Read MoreAttorneys for SRS Watch, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Tri-Valley CAREs, plaintiffs in a federal court case demanding a “programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” (PEIS) on plutonium pit production, have mounted a strong challenge to weak Department of Justice claims that key documents should be excluded from the case.
Read MoreThe U.S. Department of Energy has quietly told friends that it’s program to “dispose of” 40 metric tons of surplus weapons plutonium has been delayed 10 years. Search as we might we can find no public information about this.
Savannah River Site has a key role in “plutonium disposition”
Read MoreSavannah River Site Watch reached out to attendees at a clean energy festival (https://getoffthegridfest.com/) in Spartanburg, South Carolina on August 19, 2023, to enlist opposition to plans by the Department of Energy & Department of Defense (of the Biden Administration) to keep the U.S.
Read MorePhoto in post: Don’t Dump Rocky Flats Plutonium Pit Production on South Carolina! 1992 at gates of Rocky Flats pit-production facility, nbear Boulder, Colorado, with current SRS Watch director (standing under the center of the billboard, by support post)
Oppenheimer Legacy: South Carolina the Center of the New Nuclear Arms Race –
Read MoreThe federal judge in Columbia, South Carolina has issued a new schedule for the public interest lawsuit asking for preparation of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) concerning the plan to produce plutonium pits – for new nuclear weapons – at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Los Alamos National Lab in South Carolina.
Read MoreThe DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals has decided in favor of SRS Watch and granted our appeal of an inadequate search for documents relevant to our FOIA request related to import and dumping of Ger man spent fuel at SRS. The request has been “remanded” back to SRS to conduct an adequate search.
Read MoreLatest News
The Barnwell reprocessing plant in South Carolina, adjacent to the Savannah River Site, thankfully never operated, thus sparing South Carolina huge volumes of highly radioactive nuclear waste and separated weapon-usable plutonium. Photos by SRS Watch, 2019
Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power reactors is a dirty and dangerous process,
Read MorePhoto: Unit 3 at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle, Georgia, started operation in August 2023; cover photo: units 3 and 4 (unit 4 is due to start operation in the 2nd quarter 2024, barring more of the usual delays)
Thanks to our colleague Dr. Ed Lyman for sounding the alarm about efforts to further weaken the regulatory abilities of the U.S.
Read MoreWas the confused orange candidate raising the specter of South Carolina being hit by a massive nuclear weapon – from whom? – due to the DOE’s Savannah River Site being located here? Or was it for political purposes of some sort?
SRS already processes all tritium gas that goes into all US nuclear weapons &
Read MoreMaterials from Japan containing significant amounts of weapon-grade plutonium and bomb-grade uranium – so-called Fast Critical Assemblies (FCAs) – were shipped by sea to the Savannah River Site, via the port of Charleston, SC, in 2016. Now, SRS inches closer to processing the FCA waste.
The original thought was that the plutonium and highly-enriched uranium could be removed,
Read MorePlutonium waste from Palomares, Spain to US? GAO report, Jan. 31, 2024 – “Nuclear Waste: Changing Conditions May Affect Future Management of Contamination Deposited Abroad During U.S. Cold War Activities” – confirms plutonium-contaminated waste from US nuclear bomber accident in Spain 1966 – four nuclear weapons hit the ground and sea –
Read More“Appalling” and “Abysmal”
By Don Moniak, Aiken County, South Carolina – in The Aiken Chronicles, January 22, 2024
How the Department of Energy addressed Governor McMaster’s and Attorney General Alan Wilson’s conflicting and sometimes harsh opinions regarding the future of surplus plutonium.
https://aikenchronicles.com/2024/01/22/appalling-and-abysmal/
The U.S.
Read MoreSee links below to the Final EIS on Surplus Plutonium Disposition and to the Federal Register notice about that (January 19, 2024). SRS could well be processing 34 metric tons (plus another 6 MT already addressed = 40 MT) of plutonium into transuranic waste (TRU) to be dumped in the Waste Isolation Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.
Read More“Cold War nuclear waste is prioritized at Carlsbad-area repository. How much is there?”
article in Carlsbad Current Argus, Carlsbad, New Mexico, December 28 2023; with SRS Watch Director Tom Clements
Concerns were raised by government watchdog groups for a plan to dispose of Cold War nuclear waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant repository in southeast New Mexico,
Read MoreBuried secrets, poisoned bodies
December 20, 2023 – in Searchlight New Mexico, investigative journalism website (something we unfortunately do not have in South Carolina – all we get is SRS “SubStandard” propaganda)
“Why did a Truchas woman die with extraordinary amounts of plutonium in her body — and why was she illegally autopsied?
Read MorePlutonium is flammable, so there will be risks to SRS workers, the environment and public if SRS ever processes plutonium into “pits” for new nuclear warheads, part of the US effort to stoke a new nuclear arms race. The effort to build the SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant is far behind schedule and far over budget.
Read MoreProposed SRS Plutonium Bomb Plant a key to the madness of a new nuclear arms race
“A New Nuclear Arms Race?”
article in Defense & Security Monitor, November 15, 2023
As the world faces another full-scale war in the Middle East, and the Ukraine conflict continues with little sign of conclusion,
Read MoreFrom Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a fellow organization with SRS Watch in the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA):
U.S. Strategic Posture Commission Ratchets Up
Nuclear Arms Race
Today, America’s Strategic Posture, The Final Report was released by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.
Read More