MOX Boondoggle Update: It Just Keeps Getting Uglier and Uglier for NNSA & CB&I AREVA MOX Services
Aerial photos of MOX plant taken on April 21 released by SRS Watch as news of stunning cost of $47++-billion MOX project leaks out — photos taken by High Flyer at legal altitude of 2000 feet show outside of MOX plant not finished, contrary to what has been claimed
— Time to pull the plug on the MOX project
– photos can be used with credit, call 803-834-3084 – call for higher resolution photos
Summary of plutonium disposition costs linked here, with $47++ billion estimate for MOX
Photos show numerous openings into the MOX plant remain unfinished and that outside security wall (gabion wall) is incomplete. A worker now reports that inside walls are being jackhammered out as they were put in the wrong place. Also, there are more reports of cable trays and piping being improperly installed. Were work orders illegally signed off on, showing work was complete and properly done when that may not have been the case? Is a federal lawsuit for fraud in the works against CB&I AREVA MOX Services?
Is CB&I, part of the CB&I AREVA MOX Services team that has mismanaged the failed MOX project, conducting an investigation into construction problems and the improper signing off of work orders? There are indications that this is the case but the NRC, CB&I AREVA MOX Services and DOE/NNSA are all dodging the issue in response to inquiries by SRS Watch.
We have been told that the push to meet construction schedules resulted in work orders being signed off even though the work was done improperly or not finished. The NRC should monitor any investigation to make sure workers are not being intimidated. Send documentation on this issue to srswatch@gmail.com. Why won’t the media investigate MOX plant construction problems that the NNSA admitted on March 25 during a tour of SRS by SRS Watch and other public interest groups?
Hopefully, the plutonium disposition cost report will be made public in its entirity. The $47-billion+ cost figure we’re hearing for MOX is far beyond the $30-billion figure DOE has been using until now and will likely seal the fate of the MOX project currently being mismanaged by DOE/NNSA and CB&I AREVA MOX Services.
Search for “MOX” in this Fiscal Year 2015 “omnibus” spending document, passed in December 2014, to see mention of the required report, prepared by the Aerospace Corporation.
The House Energy & Water Resources Subcommittee passed DOE spending legislation last week. The $345 million in the Fiscal Year 2016 budget for the MOX plant construction is simply a placeholder amount until the House reviews the DOE report and acts on it. $345 million/year is way less than half the project needs for two decades but the money isn’t there and MOX may well be on a “cold standby” path. The start-up cost alone of the MOX plat is estimated by DOE to be $1.8 billion (on page 634 in the DOE’s FY2016 budget request – true to form for this bungled project that’s three times the “original validated baseline!”). Thus, a $345 million/year funding level means it could take five years to start the plant (even if design flaws and technical problems don’t cause problems and if there are any customers for the experimental fuel weapon-grade MOX that might be produced).
Ding Dong the MOX is Dead?
“>SRS Watch Update on DOE/NNSA’s and CB&I AREVA MOX Services Problem-Plagued Plutonium Disposition Program, April 9 – linked here