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Combined News Posts August-October 2016

SRS Watch · October 31, 2016 ·

“Part 21” report for MOX plant gloveboxes – potentially defective component supplied by a vendor to the MOX BOOndoggle

Docket Number 070-03098
CB&I AREVA MOX Services
Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility
Interim Report Notification: Vigor/Oregon Iron Works

“The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility is evaluating a nonconforming condition associated with electrical penetration holes for PML gloveboxes which were found to be out of tolerance (OOT) as specified in procurement requirements. No basic components have been determined to contain a defect.”

​See CB&I AREVA MOX Services Part 21 interim report to the US NRC, October 27, 2016 – linked here

As with most Part 21 reports on defective components supplied to the MOX plant, the NRC will file this one away and we’re likely to never hear about it again.

—-

Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Savannah River Site to meet on November 14-15, 2016 in Aiken, South Carolina –

notice & agenda linked here

October 28 pre-notice to appear in Federal Register on October 21, 2016: 

Department of Energy – Notice of Open Meeting

SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EM SSAB), Savannah River Site. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. No. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the
Federal Register.
DATES: Monday, November 14, 2016 1:00 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016 8:30 a.m. – 4:45 p.m.
ADDRESSES: Applied Research Center
301 Gateway Drive, Aiken, SC 29802
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: James Giusti, Office of External Affairs, Department of Energy, Savannah River Operations Office, P.O. Box A, Aiken, SC, 29802; Phone: (803) 952-7684.
—-


 

Duke Energy has wasted $507 million on the dead-end Lee nuclear reactor project in Cherokee County, South Carolina!

See Duke letter of October 28, 2016 to South Carolina PSC linked here.

Duke rate payers in North & South Carolina must never be put on the hook for this imprudent spent!

image:  NRC imagination of Lee reactor site, adjacent to the scenic Broad River in South Carolina, near the North Carolina border in the Duke service area

—-


 

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) confirms restart of processing of plutonium oxide in the aging HB-Line/H-Canyon reprocessing plant at SRS – posted week of October 24:

“Plutonium Processing: SRNS resumed plutonium metal operations at HB-Line and H-Canyon, which had not been performed in 12 months (see 9/11 -9/18/15 reports). The staff observed a plutonium item being charged in the dissolver. No problems were encountered.”

DNFSB weekly report for September 29, 2016 linked here

The plutonium oxide was destined for the failed MOX project but will now be processed so as to be disposed of as nuclear waste.  SRS Watch has learned that Savannah River National Lab (SRNL) has begun research into furnaces to oxidize plutonium for disposal.  See SRNL
1-page fact sheet linked here
.

—-

October 27, 2016: NRC releases “Augmented Inspection Team” report on problem-plagued Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant in Columbia, South Carolina – AIT report linked here on SRS Watch 

NRC posted the report on October 28 – linked here in the NRC’s digital library (ADAMS)

NRC says this about the uranium fuel plant, which has faced a host of issue related to uranium buildup in processing facilities:  The AIT report documents four URIs, or Unresolved Items. Those are issues that remain under review and could result in enforcement actions as our process continues.  The NRC does not expect those issues to be resolved for some time, perhaps several weeks or longer.

—–
​
SRS Watch quote & photo (by High Flyer) on MOX woes, in Russian media:

“American experts hope for further cooperation between US and Russia in nuclear field”

PenzaNews, 20 October 2016

article in English liked here

Американские эксперты надеются на продолжение сотрудничества России и США в ядерной сфере

article in Russia linked here

—-

“MOX site contractor won’t be punished for violations”

Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, October 15, 2016

article linked here

Given this and other violations at the mismanaged construction site, the NRC must inspect all welds in the 29%-finished MOX plant.

—–


More on the MOX Scam prolonged by Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Joe Wilson for Shaw/CB&I AREVA MOX Services:

“Nuke Fuel Facility Costs Ten Times Estimate, is 41 Years Behind Schedule”

— blog by Project on Government Oversight (POGO),
October 13, 2016 – linked here

Where are the investigations into waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement at the MOX debacle?  Investigations are needed into DOE, NNSA, Shaw/CB&I AREVA MOX Services and such contractors as the HVAC contractor Superior Air Handling – a Harris company (“We have a reputation”) – rumored to have bungled the HVAC job at the MOX boondoggle.  If you have information that will help investigators, please communicate it to the appropriate agency or congressional committee or to SRS Watch: srswatch@gmail.com, tel. 803-834-3084

—-

“Westinghouse moving toward restart of its Columbia fuel plant” 

The State, Columbia, SC, October 14, 2016

– article linked here

Westinghouse presentation to South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council (NAC), October 13, 2016 – linked here

—–

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) press packet for October 3, 2016 news conference in the Ontario Parliament Building in Toronto is linked below.   The media event was about the unjustified scheme by the U.S. Department of Energy to transport liquid high-level nuclear waste from the Chalk River Laboratories to SRS, for processing and dumping into the aging waste tanks.

media packet and attachment linked here

The packet includes the media release, the letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama with all the endorsing groups so far, the letter to the Great Lakes Executive Committee co-chairs, some additional background material including relevant excerpts from the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

For over 3 1/2 years we’ve called for an Environmental Impact Statement on the scheme, which would involve public input and an analysis of managing the waste in Canada. As DOE has refused to prepare this document, the demand for the EIS remains the same. Due to our legal challenge, the shipments have been postponed until at least February 17, 2017. For lots more on the lawsuit and the dumping scheme, scroll down here on the SRS Watch website or go to the SRS Watch Facebook page and scroll down it.

—-

MOX Scam at SRS: “A recipe for wasteful spending: South Carolina Pork with Russian Dressing”

Thanks to the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), The Hill, October 7, 2016

op-ed linked here

The MOX Swindle is going down – where will the MOX rats hide?

—-

 

Quote of the day, October 7 – as it applies to the failed, mismanaged MOX debacle and need for investigations into waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement by DOE, NNSA, Shaw, CB&I AREVA MOX Services, Superior Air Handling, Energy & Process Corp., other MOX contractors and…

…politicians such as Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Joe Wilson (who have kept the failed project on life support and run up the national debt and blocked progress on plutonium disposition for 20 years):

“When the rats jumpeth from a sinking ship they shall struggle and flounder and sinketh by the weight of their own greed and malodorous offenses against the common good.” 

—-

​”Governments must use four-month delay to reconsider plans for trucking liquid nuclear waste” [from Canada to the Savannah River Site] 

Buffalo News editorial, October 6, 2016

editorial linked here

—–

“Putin’s Nix of Plutonium Pact Clouds MOX Project’s Future”

Engineering News-Report (ENR), October 5, 2016


–
– with SRS Watch comment and photo by High Flyer (special to SRS Watch)

>>> Time to get on with investigations into waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement by DOE/NNSA/Shaw/CB&I AREVA MOX Services/Superior Air Handling for the MOX $cam Led by $enator Lind$ey Graham and Repre$entative Joe Wil$on

—– 


 

October 5, 2016 – Update on federal court case for removal of plutonium from South Carolina

The federal judge in Columbia, SC has not ruled in the case – State of South Carolina v. United States, et al., No. 1:16-cv-391 – to begin removal of plutonium from the Savannah River Site.  A hearing was held on the matter on June 30, 2016 and a ruling is delayed. On October 3 documents were placed in the docket by DOE to show the court that packaging of plutonium for disposal as waste had begun in the K-Area at SRS.  (K-Area glovebox shown in photo above.)

See the documents linked here:

1. DOE news that plutonium downblending at SRS had started, September 30, 2016

“SRS Begins Down-Blend Operations for 6 MT of Plutonium”

2. Statement by Department of Justice lawyers that the downdblended plutonium will be shipped to the waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico when it reopens – filing linked here

SRS Watch prediction: the judge will rule against the State of South Carolina, which will be yet another one of the endless blows against the MOX boondoggle of Senator Lindsey Graham, Representative Joe Wilson and CB&I AREVA MOX Services (which should be under multiple investigations for waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement for the MOX scam).

—–


 

“Liquid Nuclear Waste Convoys [to SRS from Canada] a Threat to the Waters of the Great Lakes”

Video of Media Conference at the Ontario Parliament Buildings on October 3 2016 featuring Dr. Gordon Edwards of CCNR, Janet McNeill of DNA, and Christine Elwell of SCCF, introduced by Angela Bischoff of OCAA.

video of news conference linked here:
​
https://youtu.be/75Q-kydrB8s

links to letters to Prime Minister Trudeau and President Obama about the liquid high-level waste shipments and need for an Environmental Impact Statement – at end of news release linked here

—–


 

October 2016 starts with a huge headache for MOX boosters:  take two aspirin, cancel MOX and apologize – starting with Senator Graham and Rep. Joe Wilson  – for the massive MOX ripoff perpetrated for so long against the US tax payers… 

“Russia Announces Suspension of U.S.-Russian Plutonium Agreement”

Statement by Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist, union of Concerned Scientists, October 3, 2016

“The U.S should immediately suspend construction of the MOX plant.”

full blog linked here

photo: failed MOX plant at SRS, June 20, 2016, can be used with this credit: “©High Flyer, special to SRS Watch” – other photos available on request, tel. 1-803-834-3084, srswatch@gmail.com

—–

On the positive side, this action by Russia might allow the US to take further steps to halt the MOX boondoggle:
​
“Russia suspends implementation of plutonium disposition agreement” 

International Panel on Fissile Materials blog, October 3, 2016 – linked here

Article IX.6 of the US-Russia Plutonium Managment and Disposition Agreement is a way for the US to not carry out the terms of the agreement. The article states: “The activities of each Party under this Agreement shall be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.” As Congress is funding MOX at a level which means it will be shut down, perhaps it’s time for the US to formally state that this article means that MOX is formally dead.

—–


 

Gillibrand, Higgins press to prevent nuclear shipments over Peace Bridge [to be dumped at SRS in South Carolina]

Buffalo (New York) News, September 30, 2016

Thanks to Senator Gillibrand and Representative Higgins for pushing DOE to prepare an EIS on this unnecessary liquid high-level nuclear waste shipment, which would only add to the nuclear waste burden at SRS.  The waste can be managed in Canada and DOE must analyze that viable option.

article linked here

—–


 

Plutonium Disposition Update from SRS, September 30, 2016:

“Savannah River Site (SRS) personnel began efforts yesterday that will result in the processing and permanent disposal of six metric tons of surplus non-pit plutonium.”

Update linked here

photo: Criticality Control Overpack (CCO), into which plutonium oxide is mixed with a secret material called “stardust” for disposal as nuclear waste, photo from public interest group tour of SRS, March 25, 2015

—–


 

And, 

​

“Ariail on the latest plan to bury nuclear waste in SC”
​

The State, Columbia, South Carolina September 30, 2016

While the scheme is to store highly radioactive commercial spent fuel (from South Carolina reactors) at the old Barnwell reprocessing site on the eastern boundary of SRS, the real goal appears to be reprocessing of the spent fuel. Reprocessing is a costly and dirty process that separates weapon-usable plutonium and leaves behind a host of hard-to-manage waste streams, including high-level nuclear waste and low-level nuclear waste. Much of this waste would likely either be stranded at the site of have to be buried somewhere.  There is no demand or need for reprocessing in the US and it’s on a sharp decline in the few countries that are pursuing it.

And, let’s not forget the dodgy plans by special interests to dump German spent fuel and liquid high-level nuclear waste from Canada….

Public interest groups have publicly opposed the scheme:
news release of September 27, 2016 linked here.

Ariail cartoon linked here

—–


 

September 29, 2016 – DOE’s Inspector General (IG) releases report questioning continued operation of aging H-Canyon reprocessing plant at SRS.  Looks to SRS Watch like DOE is scrambling to invent missions for the H-Canyon, a cash cow for SRS, such as the unnecessary processing of liquid high-level nuclear waste from Canada or processing of German graphite spent fuel

INFORMATION: Audit Report on “H-Canyon Processing at the Savannah River Site” – linked here

in the report:

BACKGROUND

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management (Environmental Management) has management responsibility for the safe operations of the H-Canyon plant at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. H-Canyon, built in the 1950s to support the nuclear weapons program, is currently used to process nuclear materials, including aluminum-clad domestic and foreign research reactor spent nuclear fuel. The recovered enriched uranium is then down blended into low enriched uranium for eventual use in commercial power reactors. The HB-Line facility, built atop the canyon in the 1980s to produce plutonium as a power source for deep space exploration, is now used to convert excess plutonium into an oxide for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility or for final disposition. H-Canyon is the nation’s only hardened nuclear chemical separations plant still in operation, and HB-Line is the only processing facility of its kind within the Department. To ensure that H-Canyon remains available for fissile materials disposition, in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, and reiterated in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, Congress required that the Department continue H-Canyon operations, maintain a high state of readiness, and provide the associated necessary technical staff.
Because H-Canyon’s mission is essential to the Department and the nation, we initiated this audit to determine whether the Department has a long-term strategy for H-Canyon operations.

RESULTS OF AUDIT
We found that the Department had not developed a long-term strategy to use H-Canyon to support multiple programmatic missions.

​—–

The odds are very long that this nonsensical spent fuel storage & reprocessing scheme gets off the ground….

“
Groups oppose plan to store nuclear fuel near SRS
“

Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle, September 27, 2016

article linked here

​
“Plan surfaces for new nuclear disposal ground in SC” 

The State, Columbia, SC, Sept. 26, 2016

Reprocessing of spent fuel near SRS – no way!

SRS Watch, South Carolina Chapter of the Sierra Club & South Carolina League of Women Voters are pushing back against the formative proposal to “consolidate” highly radioactive spent nuclear reactor fuel at the old Barnwell site adjacent to the DOE’s Savannah River Site – possibly for eventual reprocessing.  Almost nobody but plutonium-proliferation companies, like AREVA, looking to profit off the government, want reprocessing in the US, where it’s all but dead.

article linked here

—–

MOX is “doomed” – pull the plug….. 

“New Army Corps of Engineers Report Reveals that the Problems with MOX Run Deep”

Union of Concerned Scientists blog, September 26, 2016

blog linked here

—–


 

September 23, 2016:

MOX Scam Update:

SRS Watch has obtained the anticipated MOX cost report, which is devastating to the continuation of the bungled MOX project, and hereby releases it:

“2016 Updated Performance Baseline for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site:

Overview of DOE’s 2016 Updated Performance Baseline with a Comparison to the Contractor’s Estimates and Data”

by U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY OFFICE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT OVERSIGHT AND ASSESSMENTS, with US Army Corps of Engineers

devastating MOX cost report linked here

stunning highlights:

The report confirms states that construction of the MOX plant, not the life-cycle cost, is $17.1 billion, far more than the $9.9 billion claimed by CB&I AREVA MOX Services to DOE in July 2016.

The report states that the MOX plant construction will not be finished until 2048 and that CB&I AREVA MOX Services itself has presented a date of 2029 for construction completion!  This does not include start-up.

The reports states that the percentage complete of the MOX plant is hard to determine but presents a figure of 28% complete.  It also says that CB&I AREVA MOX Services has said that the construction is 48% complete: “When comparing the actual cost of work performed to the estimate at complete, the project is 48% complete based on MOX Services’ EAC and 28% complete based on the PM EAC.”  This totally undermines the recent claim by MOX boosters that the plant is 70% complete.  We continue to hear that the 28% figure may be too high.

Note on  page 9 that AREVA in France was paid $28 million in 2016 for the MFFF technology, based on the MELOX plant in France.  How much in total has been paid for this poor design and apparently faulty technology, which might not be able to ever work to meet US operational regulations?

“Technology Transfer Fee: A technology transfer fee of $28M was included in the 2016 updated PB. This fee compensates the French AREVA company for use of their proprietary process in the MFFF. It is included in the 2016 updated PB to calculate the TPC.”

Conclusion: Doom and Gloom in MOXville Tonight! Mighty MOXie has struck out (yet again)! Senator Lindsey Graham’s pet boondoggle can’t drag on for much longer given that it is impossible to carry out, for both financial and technical reasons.

stunning MOX cost report linked here

Update: DOE/NNSA learned that the report was leaking out and posted it here, on a list of MOX boondoggle cost documents – it’s the last one on the list. 

If you have pertinent information about waste, fraud, abuse or mismanagement at the MOX Scam project, please contact SRS Watch: srswatch@gmail.com. Thanks to those of you who have contacted us.

—–


 

​

​“Ariail on the trouble with MOX”
​

The State (Columbia, South Carolina), September 16, 2016

How much longer will US tax payer money be poured down the black hole of the failed MOX project?  Self-serving politicians like Senators Graham and Scott and Representative Joe Wilson have no regard for the tax payers or the federal debt and will string this boondoggle out as long as they can.  Their main goal is handing over our money to CB&I AREVA MOX Services, a company that should be fully investigated for “waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.”

>>> Be alert to the release of the DOE/US Army Corps of Engineers report on massive MOX cost increases and huge delays in the project.  It will be devastating to the MOX boosters who have been stunned into silence and can’t make any case that MOX can move forward.

—–

Monju plutonium breeder reactor in Japan to officially close! Closure, at last, of the problem-plagued reactor is a major nuclear non-proliferation victory. 

The plutonium-proliferation industry, led AREVA (floundering in the design of designing the troubled MOX plant at SRS) takes a major hit with this news.  We’ve been working for this to happen for over 20 years and feel certain that Japan’s spent fuel reprocessing program will soon be history.

“Japan to scrap troubled ¥1 trillion Monju fast-breeder reactor”

Japan Times, September 21, 2016

article linked here

—–


 

As of September 20, 2016, the federal district court in Columbia, South Carolina has yet to rule on the State of South Carolina’s weak case demanding DOE begin removal of plutonium from the state. The hearing was held on June 30 and a ruling had been expected by now.

In a filing by the state dated September 15, the court was informed that no dates have been set for shipment of “downblended” plutonium out of the state.  There is nothing new in the filing as SRS officials have earlier said that shipments would not begin until 2017 and that SRS will store plutonium packaged for shipment to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New New Mexico.  Those containers will be stored  in the E-Area (where 291 downblended plutonium containers are now stored, awaiting shipment to WIPP.)

Meanwhile, a recently posted NNSA presentation confirms what SRS Watch has been saying – that about 90 kilograms of plutonium were earlier downblended – with “stardust” – at SRS for shipment to WIPP:
​
“Disposition Program for Surplus, Non-Pit Plutonium” 

— by Jeff Allender, Savannah River National Laboratory,
May 2016, presentation linked here


The presentation is informative about past and upcoming downblending activities at SRS.  It confirms that 670 containers were packaged with downblended plutonium and that 409 were shipped to WIPP.  In a tour earlier this year, Tom Clements of SRS Watch viewed the 97 drums containing the plutonium containers – Pipe Overpack Containers (POCs) – stored on the surface at WIPP – see photo above.  Downblending is expected to restart soon in the K-Area at SRS and will be in the larger-volume Criticality Control Overpack (CCO).

—–

DOE Secretary Moniz slams the MOX project as “impossible” and that it will cost $50-60 billion

Watch his September 13, 2016 talk at the Carnegie Endowment – linked here

“U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz on Future Nuclear Challenges”

Moniz outlines problems with MOX starting in his devastating presentation at 18’30” and goes for ten minutes or so.

Meanwhile, no MOX defenders have stepped forward to outline how the failed project could be revived or go foward.  See 8 points directly below that must be answered.

Standby for release of a new MOX life-cycle cost report by the US. Army Corps of Engineers.  Will this “death cycle” report be the final nail in the rotting MOX coffin?  If you obtain the report please pass it on: srswatch@gmail.com

—-


 

“Aiken official: Savannah River Site’s MOX purposefully left out of NNSA discussion”

Aiken (South Carolina) Standard, September 14, 2016


article linked here

We’re still waiting for Senator Lindsey Graham and his decrepit band of MOX boosters to demonstrate and prove to the public that: 1) Congress will find the MOX mess for the next 2-3 decades (or more) at $800+ million/year, 2)  construction problems and reinstallation problems can be solved, 3) that design challenges can be overcome, 4) the basic MOX facility can be finished, 5) the facility can be made to start up, 6) it can operate as planned so as to complete the mission, 7) managers in DOE/NNSA/CB&I AREVA MOX Services who caused this boondoggle will be held accountable and punished, 8) full-scale investigations into waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement will get underway, 9) D & D cost estimates are released and 10) any utilities will step forward to offer their reactor to use MOX fuel made from WG plutonium.

But all we get is dead silence on these key points as Senator Graham & co. just keep dumping our money down the CB&I AREVA MOX Services dead-end black hole.

If any MOX booster cares to make a case for the way forward with the MOX project, as we have been asking for years, please do: srswatch@gmail.com.

The silence by Senators Graham and Scott and Rep. Joe Wilson, who have been gobsmacked by this absolute disaster, affirms that Congress is correct to keep the MOX project on a shut-down track – with insufficient funding. It’s only a matter of time until the badly bungled project officially is terminated.  Tick Tock!

photo: MOX boondoggle site, June 20, 2016, can be used with this credit: “©High Flyer, special to SRS Watch

—–


 

International Nuclear Services (INS) operates the UK-flagged vessel transporting plutonium to SRS.  Notes from latest Ramsden dock meeting, posted on September 12, 2016, reveal a bit of information on shipments of plutonium dumped at SRS from Switzerland, Germany & Japan:

“Ramsden Dock Terminal Stakeholder Group Minutes of the 16th meeting, Barrow Town Hall, Barrow-in-Furness,
12th August, 2016”

minutes on plutonium from Japan and Europe to SRS, that was transported on PNTL ships linked here: http://www.pntl.co.uk/…/…/2016/09/16th-RDTSG-Minutes-PDF.pdf

“International transports

Highlights have included two significant transport operations in support of international non-proliferation goals which aim to consolidate and minimise inventories of nuclear material.

– INS were involved in a transport of material from Japan to the US which was described as the biggest transport of its kind and plays a key role in the US M3 initiative (formerly known as the Global Threat Reduction programme). A huge amount of work from several agencies went into making sure this operation was completed safely and securely.
– INS also played a key role in a collaborative effort to transport Highly Enriched Uranium and separated plutonium from Switzerland and Germany to the United States. In a statement the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) highlighted the “significant contribution of the United Kingdom’s International Nuclear Services, which provided the secure transport of the material from Europe to the United States”.”

photo: by Cumbrians Opposed to a Radioactive Environment (CORE), of the Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL) ships – Pacific Egret, Pacific Grebe, Oceanic Pintail & Pacific Heron – anchored in the home port of Barrow-in-Furness, England, June 20, 2016

—–


 

“MOX plant at Savannah River Site will cost $12 billion more than initially thought”

The State, September 8, 2016 – article linked here

Updated article, on front page of The State on September 9, 2016,  with photo by High Flyer (special to SRS Watch) – linked here – please post a comment on line

>>> We note the article states that “Federal officials showed examples of design and contractor problems they say have driven up costs.” As we have been saying for 2 years – the project faces huge design and construction problems and we don’t think they can be resolved.  DOE needs to release more information about this, as we have been repeatedly calling for.  We think DOE knows the project can’t be finished and wants to cut the loss to the taxpayer.  But CB&I AREVA MOX Services and Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott continue to want to continue the pointless MOX ripoff.

—-

DOE is set on September 8, 2016 to give reporters a tour of the MOX boondoggle at SRS and plutonium downblending mock-up facilities in the K-Area..

Will DOE discuss details of the construction and design problems of the mismanaged MOX project or lay out how the technical and massive funding challenges can be overcome?  (Uh, they haven’t touched the funding issue so far so we don’t expect much from this tour.)

We’re still hearing from the inside of the project that it could take another 10 years to finish the construction of the MOX plant and a further 10 years to struggle through operation of the facility.  Sounds like a losing situation for MOX boosters but that won’t stop MOX minions like Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott from picking our pockets for another year to the tune of $340 million flushed down the CB&I AREVA MOX Services drain.

photo: MOX plant at SRS, June 20, 2016

—–

SRS Watch signed on to this letter – September 7, 2016

Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project news:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Alan Kuperman

WEDNESDAY, September 7, 2016 ak@NPPP.org, (512) 471-8245

Nuclear Experts Accuse U.S. of Violating Nonproliferation Agreement –

Bomb-Grade Uranium Headed to Europe Despite Pledge to End Exports by 2015

WASHINGTON – More than two dozen nuclear experts, including former U.S. officials under the six preceding presidents of both parties, today accused the Obama Administration of violating a 2012 nonproliferation agreement to end exports to Europe of bomb-grade, highly enriched uranium (HEU) for production of medical isotopes.

full news release linked here

experts’ letter to DOE linked here

—–

Citizens  and politicians push back against misguided proliferation-prone scheme to dump Canadian high-level nuclear waste at SRS:

 “Lawsuit targets US-Canada nuclear waste transport plan”

Journal of Commerce, August 30, 2016

article linked here

“Department of Energy needs to provide more information on planned shipments of liquid nuclear waste” to SRS from Canada

Buffalo (New York) News, August 22, 2016

editorial linked here

—-
Rep. “Higgins puts EPA, Homeland Security “on notice” about Peace Bridge nuclear waste shipments” from Canada to SRS (for processing and dumping)

Buffalo (New York) News, August 22, 2016 

article linked here

—-

“Nuclear watchdog coalition files suit against Energy Department to stop liquid waste shipments to Savannah River Site”

Aiken (South Carolina) Standard, August 17, 2016

article linked here

Why has DOE refused for over 3 years to analyze the option to “denature” this liquid high-level nuclear waste, containing US-origin HEU, in Canada?  This is the process that DOE allowed earlier this year for similar liquid waste in Indonesia, also a by-product of medical isotope production.  Must be that the $60 million that Canada is paying SRS has so far taken precedent over sound nuclear non-proliferation policies.  

See the complaint and associated legal filings here

—- 

SRS Watch at Hiroshima conference for nuclear disarmament and for a halt to plutonium proliferation  –
yes, the p
ublic and Japanese media heard a lot about the failed US MOX program

「再処理が核拡散に」広島の原水禁国際会議で議論

“R
eprocessing is nuclear proliferation.”

article linked here

>>> text via Google translate:

Discussed at Gensuikin international conference in Hiroshima

World Congress International Conference against A & H Bombs Japan National Congress (Gensuikin) of 5 days, was held in Hiroshima. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel of the nuclear power plant, use a diversion possible plutonium in nuclear weapons Japan’s policy, lead to a re-processing competition from South Korea and China, it specializes in opinion that could be the Northeast Asia in the unstable situation at home there were numerous from.

US nuclear watchdog group Savannah River site Watch Tom Clements representative “Japan has no use for about 48 tons of plutonium, it should not increase the accumulation running the re-processing plant. (Use the plutonium in the fuel) fast breeder reactor also should be stopped “and pointed out.

article linked in Korean here

—–

More bad news for those seeking to dump German commercial spent fuel on SRS – lots of news coverage in Germany, with a growing sense that the export effort is doomed. Pressure is increasing to simply leave the waste where it is now located – at the Juelich, Germany research center.

“Widerstand gegen Jülicher Atommüll wächst: Proteste in Ahaus”

“Resisting Jülich nuclear waste is growing: Protests in Ahaus”

Aachener Zeitung, 2 August 2016

article linked here

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