DOE Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2016 Spells 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!  Forget that there are no MOX customers, those figures alone underscore that the mismanaged MOX program is not viable and should have been terminated years ago.

See DOE budget documents here

Budget volume 1, for the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, contains the MOX horror story – click here

— see pages 628 and 634 in volume 1 for the $12.7 billion cost of MOX plant construction and page 636 for the $671 million/year MOX plant operating cost —

Time to get on with terminating this pathetic boondoggle called MOX and pursue other plutonium disposal options.

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February 2, 2015:  DOE budget for Fiscal Year 2016 to be released – MOX boondoggle barely survives for now, fate to be decided by plutonium disposition alternatives analysis now underway

SRS Watch and Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) news releases on budget linked here:

<strong “mso-bidi-font-weight:=”” normal”=””>SRS Watch has Learned MOX Funding Flat in Fiscal Year 2016 Budget Request to Congress, Fate of Project Remains Subject to Plutonium Disposition Review Now Under Way

<strong “mso-bidi-font-weight:=”” normal”=””>Budget Request of Feb. 2 States MOX Plant Most Current Cost Estimate is $12.7 Billion, with Completion in 2027-2031, Mismanaged Project Not Demonstrated to be Financially Sustainable or Technically Viable

SRS Watch has learned that the review of plutonium disposition options, as required by Congress in the appropriations legislation passed into law in December 2014, is moving forward and the review team was recently at SRS.  The review team visited the K-Area, where plutonium is stored and could be packaged for disposal as waste, and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF).

The budget request affirms that a company called Aerospace Corporation has been contracted by DOE to assist with the review, which is looking into full cost of both MOX and various methods of disposal of plutonium as waste. Aerospace is to provide independent cost and schedule estimates for plutonium disposition alternatives but it is unknown if the company has the expertise needed to review complex, costly plutonium programs.  The analysis is due to Congress in mid-April but may be ready for internal agency review well before that date.

full SRS Watch and ANA news releases linked here