GAO Confirms Massive $2 Billion Cost Increase for Plutonium Fuel (MOX) Plant at Savannah River Site – NNSA Outed by GAO

NNSA Cover-Up of Massive Cost Increase of MOX Plant Blown by GAO – Ooopppsss!

In a report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on February 14, the rumored $2-billion increase in the U.S. Department of Energy’s plutonium fuel (MOX) facility under construction at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina has been confirmed.  Though there have been lingering rumors about the massive cost increase, this is the first time the increase has been publicly confirmed by a federal government agency.

In the GAO report (GAO-13-283, February 2013, http://gao.gov/products/GAO-13-283), entitled “HIGH-RISK SERIES An Update”  – GAO states:
“…GAO is currently conducting work on NNSA’s project to construct its Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site, to which NNSA recently added $2 billion to the project’s cost estimate even as the facility nears completion.”
Full GAO report is at:  http://gao.gov/assets/660/652133.pdf
For the past two years, the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has staunchly refused to reveal the “rebaselined” cost for the MOX plant despite repeated requests.  Additionally, the NNSA has refused to release a life-cycle cost estimate for the overall plutonium disposition program, estimated by Tom Clements to be around $18 billion, a figure never challenged throughout 2012 by NNSA.   “NNSA has ceaselessly attempted to hide the cost increase of the MOX plant but now GAO has done the job that NNSA should have done long ago,” according to Tom Clements, public interest watchdog over SRS who is based in Columbia, South Carolina..
“Confirmation of a stunning $2-billion cost increase of the MOX plant construction spells even bigger trouble for the project and could be its doom,” said Clements.  “It is becoming much clearer that MOX funding will be cut substantially in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request due to mismanagement which has resulted to massive and uncontrolled cost increases and lengthy schedule delays for the facility.  There has been nothing short of a cover-up by NNSA of the huge cost increase, and it is of great embarrassment that NNSA itself did not step up to the plate to reveal this shocking budget-busting news.”
The Project on Government Oversight (POG) reported on February 11 that “Budget for MOX Program Cut By 75 Percent” in the Fiscal Year 2014 budget request coming in mid-March.
It has been confirmed that GAO is currently engaged in another investigation aimed specifically at the MOX plant and that interviews for that report are underway.  The State news paper in Columbia, SC reported that GAO investigators visited SRS on January 15-17 in a February article entitled “Critics fear $7 billion SRS boondoggle” as part of an “ongoing assessment.”
Other problems have arisen as NNSA and the contractor Shaw AREVA MOX Services have not been able to secure any contracts with utilities which might want to use the experimental weapons-grade MOX fuel, which has never been used commercially in a nuclear reactor anywhere in the world.  MOX fuel makes a reactor harder to control during operation and the increased heat of spent MOX causes magnified spent fuel management problems.
In 2004, the facility was estimated to cost $1.8 billion. In 2007, the estimate was $4.8 billion, where the cost has been frozen until now.  The $6.8 billion price tag now on the facility represents a single, massive jump in the cost estimate of about 30%.
“NNSA must now immediately begin pursuit of Plan B – safer, cheaper, and quicker plutonium options to dispose of plutonium as waste, something we have been calling for repeatedly over the last decade,” said Clements. 
See early February aerial photo of the MOX plant and area around it posted along with this blog. According to Clements, the roof should be finished to protect the facility from the elements and then the plant should be mothballed. According to an NNSA presentation to the SRS Citizens Advisory Board on January 29, 2013, the roof should be completed in March.
The US-Russia plutonium disposition agreement (not a treaty as NNSA often erroneously says) is no longer being pursued in parallel with Russia as Russia abandoned use in their light-water reactors (VVERs) of MOX and instead has been building a new plutonium “breeder” reactor to use MOX fuel.  The BN800 breeder, which is now under construction and which may face start-up and operational difficulties, poses nuclear proliferation risks as the reactor can produce weapons-grade plutonium when operated to do so.  “It is a blow to international nuclear non-proliferation policies that the US has helped enable Russia to build the BN800 breeder reactor,” said Clements.