Friends of the Earth (with SRS Watch staff support) mentioned in article on how Dominion Energy – which wants to take over SCANA/SCE&G – is not such a good actor back home in Virginia:
“Utility trying to buy SCANA draws fire for its influence, environmental record”
The State, Columbia, South Carolina, April 16, 2018
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SRS Watch in “Radioactive mouse found at SRS”
“A watchdog group is asking for further investigation after a highly contaminated mouse was found in a radioactive waste storage tank area at Savannah River Site.”
Augusta (Georgia) chronicle, April 11, 2018
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Senator Lindsey “MOXie” Graham again drops the ball on his favorite boondoggle: MOX
UPDATE: The end of the Senate Energy & Water Subcommittee hearing on the DOE budget arrived – 4:15 p.m April 11, 2018 – and Senator MOX did not show! Has the chief MOX cheerleader realized that MOX-termination is upon him? Due to his lack of ability to defend the
bungled project and the fact that it’s not viable caused him to all but give up on his favorite boondoggle?! His MOX boo$ter backer$ won’t be happy but they have run out of taxpayer-gouging road. Termination here we come!
“Hearing to Review the Dept. of Energy & NNSA Budget Requests for FY2019”
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development Date: Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Time: 02:30 PM Location: Dirksen Senate Office Building Room 138,
see archived webcast here:
Membership of Senate Energy & Water Subcommittee (of Appropriations) linked here – note that Senator MOX is amongst them.
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Friends of the Earth/Sierra Club (with key staff assistance from SRS Watch) in article on SCE&G’s VC Summer nuclear reactor construction fiasco
“Environmental groups: SCE&G ‘refusing and obstructing’ requests for nuclear project records”
Charleston (South Carolina) Post & Courier, April 11, 2018
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“Notice of Intent to Extend the Period of Performance for Contract DE-AC09-08SR22470 for the Management and Operating Contract of the Savannah River Site” Federal Business Opportunities, April 4, 2018
“The Department of Energy (DOE) Savannah River Operations Office (SR) intends to extend the current contract with Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC (SRNS) at the Savannah River Site (SRS). The current contract with SRNS ends July 31, 2018, and is anticipated to be extended for twelve (12) months, from August 1, 2018, through July 31, 2019. This proposed extension will enable DOE-SR to continue critical requirements for management and operating (M&O) at SRS while DOE fosters competition for award of a new M&O contract.”
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We don’t want a repeat at SRS of the Rocky Flats plutonium bomb facility disasters
See what happened at the last DOE site to make large numbers plutonium pits” for nuclear weapons: Rocky Flats. SRS shipped plutonium to RF. Thanks to Boulder (Colorado) High School students for this excellent video!
“Rocky Flats: Uncovering the Coverup 1”
March 3, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IP4Q1_VA6U
photo: Rocky Flats around time of FBI raid in 1989, prior to complete closure
“SCE&G nuclear mess was completely predictable. Why aren’t we talking about the fix?”
The State, April 3, 2018 – letter linked here
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Shameful and Anti-free Speech: “US museum stalls Hiroshima exhibit over nuke weapon ban push”
Associated Press, April 2, 2018
SRS Watch director in TV report on looming termination of plutonium fuel (MOX) debacle at SRS
SRS Watch believes that MOX workers need to be treated with respect and given ample warning time about layoffs, be given good termination packets and helped with finding other jobs. We do not want to see a repeat of the shutdown of the VC Summer reactor project when workers were terminated with no warning and given no severance. Why aren’t politicians speaking up for MOX workers?????
“Future of $17B MOX Facility in jeopardy if Secretary of Energy finds cheaper alternative”
WJBF-TV, Augusta, Georgia, March 27, 2018 evening news
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MOX RED ALERT!
Chronic “Red” Score for MOX Means Perpetual Waste, Underscoring Need for Prompt Termination
The U.S. Department of Energy has again listed the plutonium fuel (MOX) construction project at the Savannah River Site in the deep “red.” According to DOE, the “Project is expected to breach its Performance Baseline cost, schedule, and scope.” No kidding!
With a “project budget” listed at $4.9 billion but with $5.4 billion already spent and total cost projected to be $17.2 billion this project is so far into the ditch it could never recover. The only option for the maldesigned, malconstucted, mismanaged project is prompt termination, which Congress, DOE and the White House are now setting up to carry out.
See DOE Project Dashboard for February 28, linked here.
On March 20, 2018 Ms. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, testified in a hearing before the House Energy & Water Subcommittee that a plan to terminate MOX is being developed, that the MOX plant construction is “nowhere near 50% complete” and that $5.4 billion has been spent on the MOX plant. Her position to terminate MOX aligns with that of Secretary of Energy Perry and the White House/Office of Management and Budget.
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Ever wonder about the “Population Distribution within a 50-mile Radius of SRS based on the 2010 U.S. Census Population”?
According to a report by the Savannah River National Lab, March 12, 2018,
here are the population amounts in rings outward from SRS (“
5 to 10 miles: 1700 people
10 to 20 miles: 77,400 (includes Aiken, South Carolina)
20 to 30 miles: 303,000 (includes Augusta, Georgia)
30 to 40 miles: 21,400
40 to 50 miles: 185,000
total within 50 miles: 781,000 (includes Columbia, SC outer sw suburbs)
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In weekly report released o n March 23, 2018, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) reports on a drill on a possible accident resulting in a breach of the H-Canyon reprocessing plant “exhaust tunnel.” An accident with the degraded exhaust tunnel or due to the aging of the 63-year-old age H-Canyon concern us.
“H-Canyon: The resident inspector observed the first of four planned tabletop drills simulating an explosion. The scenario also included an option to include a breach of the canyon exhaust tunnel.”
And, the DNFSB inspectors at SRS reviewed activities with plutonium downblending – the chosen option when MOX is terminated – in the K-Area:
“K-Area: K-Area personnel identified two separate procedure errors associated with the plutonium down blend process that resumed this week.”
See full DNFSB report linked here
In photo of H-Canyon, see radioactive gas exhaust stack in middle of photo. The DOE’s H-Canyon is not regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and thus does not meet NRC discharge standards. All the radioactive gasses that come from research reactor spent fuel during reprocessing are discharged into the environment. Will DOE submit the decrepit H-Canyon to NRC regulation?
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MOX Zombie Headed to Termination!
Now that MOX termination obstacles have been removed by Congress, with passage of spending bill into law, Representative Jim Cooper wants a date from DOE for termination of “zombie earmark” (MOX)!
Hearing before HASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee, March 22, 2018
Ranking Member Jim Cooper(D-TN) comments, at about 27’30”
“Administrator Gordon-Hagerty, several years ago I referred to the MOX program in South Carolina as a zombie earmark. And I know that you’re new to you job but I would hope that you and the Department of Energy would have a proposed termination date for that program in the relatively near future now that Congress has repeatedly given you the green light. My understanding in today’s Omnibus appropriations bill there will be no obstacles to terminating the program. So, I hope that you will be able to make that a priority in your term as administrator.”
Let us know when you think the the MOX boondoggle will be terminated. Secretary of Energy can do it quickly, 30 days after he gets cost documents. Senator Lindsey “MOXie” Graham has been sidelined with the spending bill and DOE can now make the determination on its own to kill the MOX zombie.
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“Another nail in the coffin of the misguided MOX program”
Union of Concerned Scientists blog, March 23, 2018
https://allthingsnuclear.org/elyman/mox-program-coffin
image: the failed MOX project is badly debilitated and little more than a skeleton remains, and about to be packaged up and buried
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Fort Saint Vrain spent graphite fuel to SRS? Well, no…
An SRS booster and former DOE employee let it slip just before the the SRS Citizens Advisory Board voted last September not to import German graphite spent fuel to SRS that the plan was to bring more such fuel to SRS, such as from the long-shuttered Fort St. Vrain reactor in Colorado.
The public comment about getting the highly radioactive Ft. St. Vrain spent fuel to SRS, for processing and dumping, is another reason to oppose import of German spent fuel.
For more on the Fort St. Vrain gas-cooled reactor, see this March 22, 2018 posting by the American Nuclear Society:
Fort St. Vrain in PicturesSRS CAB recommendation against German spent fuel import, September 26, 2017 – linked here
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Top booster claims facility construction has gone down 5% over past year! As long as huge amounts of taxpayer money continues to be wasted boosters don’t care how our money is wasted
After MOX boosters have claimed for well over a year that the MOX plant at SRS is 70% complete, Senator Tim Scott (Republican – South Carolina) said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on March 22, 2018 that the facility is only 65% complete! To emphasize his figure – he said “65% complete” twice.
SENATOR SCOTT: We challenged you to make your case about why MOX is going backwards and now is only 65% complete. Given what we hear about all that rework and design problems we think you likely can make a strong case.
Ms. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, recently approved administrator of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), testified to the House Energy & Water Subcommittee on March 20 that a plan to terminate MOX is being developed, that the MOX plant construction is “nowhere near 50% complete” and that $5.4 billion has been spent [wasted…] on the MOX plant. Webcast of hearing linked here.
At the Senate Armed Services hearing, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry stood by the decision to terminate the MOX boondoggle and, correctly that Russia walked away from the US-Russia plutonium disposition agreement (on October 3, 2016 – see article linked here).
See archived Senate Armed Services committee hearing on DOE budget, March 22, 2018 – “To receive testimony on challenges in the Department of Energy’s atomic energy defense programs in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2019 and the Future Years Defense Program” – linked here:
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/hearings/18-03-22-challenges-in-the-department-of-energys-atomic-energy-defense-programs
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WOW! Up to $115 billion to “clean up” SRS!
Life-cycle clean-up cost estimates for Environmental Management programs at SRS skyrocketed from FY 2018 to FY 2019 – from a range of $69 billion to $87 billion in FY 2018 to $97 billion to $115 billion in FY 2019. (see page 106 in budget document linked below)
The SRS clean-up “completion date” (at a “
50% to 80% Confidence Level”) is 2065. (see page 101) This is ample warning NOT TO IMPORT AND DUMP MORE WASTE AT SRS!With MOX going down, these figures serves as a stark reminder that clean-up will remain king of SRS programs. but we wonder if the money will ever materialize to carry out this work in the medium- and long-term.
See pages 297+ for SRS issues, such as high-level nuclear waste, H-Canyon reprocessing plant & plutonium downblending (for disposal as waste):
DOE budget request – volume 5 – “Envirironmental Management”:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2018/03/f49/DOE-FY2019-Budget-Volume-5.pdf
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Quick Hits – Good news related to SRS, March 19-20, 2018: DOE affirms that the bungled plutonium fuel (MOX) is going down & no more R&D funds from Germany for highly radioactive spent fuel dumping at SRS
> At the SRS Citizens Advisory Board meeting on March 19, a South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) official again confirmed that they believe that the SRS high-level waste tanks – full of waste from production of nuclear weapons materials – pose the “single largest environmental threat in South Carolina.” [Get that plutonium reprocessing by-product waste out of those aged tanks ASAP!]
> Ms. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, recently approved administrator of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), testified to the House Energy & Water Subcommittee on March 20 that a plan to terminate MOX is being developed, that the MOX plant construction is “nowhere near 50% complete” and that $5.4 billion has been spent [wasted…] on the MOX plant. Webcast of hearing linked here. [Hold on friends – the MOX swamp is being drained!]
> An SRS official confirmed to SRS Watch on March 20 that Germany has sent no additional funding – beyond an initial ~$10 million from a couple of years ago – for research & development of a process at SRS to process and dump graphite spent fuel from Germany. [SRS Watch has a Freedom of Information Act request filed on this matter.]
> In a presentation to the SRS C
itizens Advisory Board meeting on March 19, newly appointed site manager Mike Budney – at this first CAB meeting – said that DOE had in Fiscal Year 2018 conducted “destructive examination” of six (6) cans of plutonium stored in the K-Area (in “3103” cans”) and that the plutonium in the cans had been downblended for disposal as waste in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. so, maybe around 15 kilograms has been downblended this fiscal year. This material is part of the 6 metric tons of plutonium that SRS – under the DOE’s office of Environmental Management (EM) – has decided to downblend and ship to WIPP.—–
German Environment Ministry confirms on March 19, 2018 that when highly radioactive spent fuel from the Jülich, Germany facility is taken to the Ahaus “interim” storage facility it would not in the future be re-exported to SRS (for processing and dumping for profit).
SRS Watch supports construction of a new, interim storage facility for the AVR reactor spent fuel at Jülich and not the politically charged, controversial shipment to SRS or shipment to Ahaus
Comment from the German Bundesministerium für Umwelt, Naturschutz und Nukleare Sicherheit – translation from German:
“If a shipment to Ahaus takes place, no transport to another interim storage facility is planned before delivery to the final disposal in Germany. The approval of the interim storage facility in Ahaus expires in 2036. An extension of the permit for the Ahaus transport container warehouse would then be necessary and, in principle, also possible until it is transported to the repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste.”
photo: SRS Watch banner used in events in Germany since 2015
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Friends of the Earth (now via SRS Watch staff) and Sierra Club were prescient in predicting in 2008 what would happen to the nuclear reactor construction project. $9 billion of our money down the drain, but SCE&G, managers and shareholders profited mighty so it’s time to get our money back!
Documents obtained under “discovery” – the focus of the front page article pictured above – are slowly revealing long-term problems with the project. More documents are to come. To obtain the documents, contact us to discuss: srswatch@gmail.com
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The Jülich, Germany newspaper on shipment of German spent fuel from the storage facility in Jülich to Ahaus & not to now be dumped on SRS
SRS contractors, waste shippers, and other nuclear dumping profiteer$ and their DOE allies are crying over their bank accounts….
Jülicher Nachrichten, 17 März 2018
Ab 2019: Jülicher Atommüll soll nach Ahaus
152 Castorbehälter rollen dann durch die Region bis
in die westfälische Stadt. Die Sicherheitsbehörden
haben aber Bedenken und rechnen mit Widerstand.
translation via Google translate:
Jülich News
From 2019: Jülich nuclear waste will go to Ahaus
152 castor containers then roll through the region
in the Westphalian city. The security authorities
but have reservations and expect resistance.
A second article is entitled: “When Jülich Castor casks go on their journey – transport to Ahaus does not only mean heavy work for the police. Two new federal ministers are likely to get stomach ache.” [and it will be worse if they try to ship to SRS…]
For a pdf copy of the two pertinent nuclear waste articles in the Jülicher Nachrichten, request it of SRS Watch: srswatch@gmail.com
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For more information, in German: http://www.bi-ahaus.de/
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Sounds like the absurd option to dump high-level nuclear waste from Jülich
, Germany on SRS could be fading as a possibility.The dumping-for-profit scheme has only caught on amongst those who would make money off the deal and their government minions, while the nuclear waste problem at SRS would be magnified
Aachener Zeitung: “Jülicher Atommüll soll nach Ahaus” – Jülich nuclear waste going to Ahaus
Aachen (Germany) News (via Finance News), 16 March 2018
photo: Castor casks – similar to those in storage at Jülich (which SRS Watch has visited) – at the Ahaus “interim” storage facility; best option is to build a new facility at Jülich
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FY19 Budget Hearing – Department of Energy
Thursday, March 15, 2018 10:00 AM in 2362-B Rayburn
Energy and Water Development, and Related Agencies
Witness
The Honorable Rick Perry,
Secretary
Department of Energy
archived hearing webcast:
https://appropriations.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=395124
Our quick notes: For MOX comments – see question by chairman, Rep. Simpson – starts about 35’15” in archived webcast – he asks about National Defense Authorization Act language that allows MOX termination if there is an alternative that costs half as much as MOX, asks about timeline for interim cost estimate for dilute & dispose that meets NDAA “threshold” – when will NDAA certification be presented and MOX project terminated?
Perry affirms that DOE has been slow to respond to Congress with requested information; Total Project Cost (TPC) $17.2 billion (Corp of Engineers) for construction of MOX – construct dilute & dispose facility $200-500 million, MOX annual program cost of $800 million to $1 billion; D&D operating costs $400-600 million less per year; – big difference in cost of MOX and D&D; very striking are the completion dates MOX – 2048, D&D – 2027, 21 years difference; start dates 2050/51 vs 2028; “clearly a difference here;” mentions getting plutonium out of S. Carolina; Simpson – where did those numbers come from? Simpson said “If you can do it for 50% less I’m going to go for it.” Simpson wants reliable estimates not written on back of a napkin, wants comprehensive report on D&D; and wants to know if WIPP can accept plutonium (via LWA); Perry – will have substantially more volume at WIPP [due to container recalculation]; Simpson – more Pu to WIPP will slow things down; Perry then confuses NM spent fuel storage with the question at hand (Pu and TRU to WIPP)
SRS Watch conclusion: DOE and the Trump administration are sticking with terminating MOX; the MOX fiasco will be officially dead once DOE presents details to Congress on its alternative…..the clock ticks and MOX is likely starting to wind down – if you have news on that contact us at srswatch@gmail.com