Blog

DOE Budget Request: Gloom and Doom for MOX

The DOE’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request released on Monday, February 2 reveals that MOX plant construction has soared to $12.7 billion and yearly operating cost jumped from an estimated $543 million in the Fiscal Year 2015 to a whopping $671 million/year in the FY 2016 budget request! 

DOE reveals before SRS Citizens Advisory Board that estimated clean-up cost of SRS Cold War waste soars $23 billion to $91 to $109 billion, with site clean-up completion delayed from 2042 to 2065

Presentation to the SRS Citizen Advisory Board by Doug Hintze – January 26,

Over the Last Forty Year, there Have Been Major Savannah River Site (SRS) Victories on Behalf of the Public and Environment!

See them here.

Comment of Savannah River Site Watch, at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Public Meeting on MOX Plant Construction Regulation, New Ellenton, SC (adjacent to SRS),  January 15, 2015

The meeting included an NRC presentation on why a 10-year license extension,

SRS Watch news release – January 12, 2015

DOE Management Report Outlines Deep Problems with Management of Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Project and Indicates Cost of the MOX Plant could be Up to $12 Billion

MOX Cost and Schedule Continues to Spin Out of Control as DOE Studies the Problem –

How much money will the construction of the plutonium fuel (MOX) plant receive for Fiscal Year 2015?

As of December 31, funding in the current fiscal year (October 1,

SRS Watch news release – January 7, 2015

FOIA Documents Reveal Savannah River Site (SRS) Forced by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to Halt Promotion of “Small Modular Reactors” (SMRs) with Improperly Diverted Clean-Up Funds

Failure of SRS and Contractors to Secure SMR Funding Doomed “Enterprise SRS”  as a “Vision” for Future of SRS

Indications are that the diverted funds in question have not been reimbursued into the SRS clean-up fund. 

SRS Watch news release – December 17, 2014

Savannah River Site (SRS) Considers Controversial Direct Disposal of Containers of Surplus Weapon-Grade Plutonium in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico

DOE Receives Transport License from NRC for Plutonium Shipping Container;

U.S. Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policies On the Line:  Has DOE Prepared a”Nuclear Non-Proliferation Impact Assessment” for New Spent Fuel Reprocessing Technique being Developed at SRS?

In a letter to SRS Watch dated December 8,

SRS Watch news release on MOX funding authorized by Congress – MOX Slowly Bleeding to Death, Wasting as Much Money as Possible as it Goes Down – December 3,

Article on German spent fuel dilemma and plans to dump on the Savannah River Site (SRS) – in the November 2014 magazine of the German environmental group
“Robin Wood“:

“Atommüll nach Amerika: Jülicher Castoren sollen zur Wiederaufbereitung in die USA exportiert werden”

German State Government Analysis: Export of THTR Spent Fuel NOT Legal

On November 12, 2014, the Committee of Science and Education of the German Bundestag (Parliament) will discuss the issue of export of German commercial spent fuel to SRS. 

MOX Boondoggle Mini-Update – November 5, 2014

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) board of directors is to meet on November 6, 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee.  Though there is an agenda item entitled “Report of the Nuclear Oversight Committee,”

Foreign plutonium secretly dumped and stranded at Savannah River Site – Why?  In spite of their being no security concerns now that it’s at SRS, DOE/NNSA fumbles the issue and ain’t talking….

Plutonium Container Attack Beetles at SRS Call it a Day!

With 13 metric tons of plutonium stored in thousands of 9975 plutonium storage containers (holding 3013 cans –

See it here: 20th anniversary re-release of an important document on illegal reprocessing cooperation between the US and Japan.

“The Unlawful Plutonium Alliance – Japan’s Supergrade Plutonium and the Role of the United States”

Opposition to Scheme to Dump German Spent Fuel on SRS

A lot of articles below are in German, but you can get a sense by looking at them and the photos with the articles that public opposition to dumping German spent fuel at SRS is growing in Germany. 

A lot of articles below are in German, but you can get a sense by looking at them and the photos with the articles that public opposition to dumping German spent fuel at SRS is growing in Germany. 

Come Again?!  DOE Makes Astounding Claim that it Aims to Complete Major Capital Projects on Budget & Schedule

In a September 17, 2014 email, DOE finally admits a huge “baseline”

SRS Watch to Tour Germany from September 21-26 to Oppose Import to Savannah River Site of Highly Radioactive Spent Nuclear Fuel from Germany; Over 15 German Groups and Politicians Sponsoring the Tour

For Immediate Release –

Shaw AREVA MOX Services (SHAMS) has requested of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission that construction authorization proceedings for the MOX plant be put into the name of the new corporate entity CB&I AREVA MOX Service,

SRS Watch is headed to Germany to protest the proposed dumping of German commercial spent fuel on the Savannah River Site.  Come join us in Jülich on September 21,

Why bring up siting a new nuclear bomb plutonium “pit” plant at SRS?  Don’t bother as we don’t want it at SRS!

Several years ago, public interest groups beat back an effort by special interests to locate the Modern Pit Facility (MPF) at SRS. 

1. Inept SCE&G’s VC Summer nuclear reactor construction project (now terminated – warnings issued at the start of the project in 2008 by Friends of the Earth were repeatedly ignored) –

SRS Watch news – August 15, 2014

Member of German Parliament Calls for Halt to Plans to Export German Spent Fuel to SRS, Supports New Seismically Qualified Storage Facility in Germany; 

The Case of Tritium Production for Nuclear Weapons in Commercial Reactors: DOE Violates Nuclear Non-Proliferation Norms and Proves that Nuclear Power = Nuclear Weapons

SRS Watch news –

Savannah River Site Watch
www.srswatch.org
Media Alert
July 28, 2014

Savannah River Site Watch (SRS Watch) Interacts with Secretary of Energy Moniz at “Meet & Greet” – Question about MOX Boondoggle Posed Directly to Moniz and Opposition to German Spent Fuel Import Expressed in Letter to Him

letter to be delivered in person to Secretary Moniz:  “Place MOX Construction on Cold Standby;

Below is a July 28 news release from Senator Vincent Sheheen on the plan to dump German spent nuclear fuel at the Savannah River Site. Sheheen is in the South Carolina legislature and is running for governor.

Here’s news from a sister organization located near the Sellafield nuclear complex in the UK – Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE). 

Bundestag reveals truth on German spent fuel

Despite feeble efforts by DOE and certain special interests and a few in Germany to rebrand the AVR reactor as a “research”