Columbia, South Carolina
April 9, 2015
News on the DOE/NNSA, CB&I AREVA MOX Services MOX Boondoggle
NNSA/DOE, CB&I AREVA MOX Services, Senator Lindsey Graham & Representative Joe Wilson Remain on the Hot Seat as they Continue to Avoid Explaining how the MOX-Funding Jigsaw Puzzle Can Possibly Fit – As You’ve Led the Tax Payer Down a Maze with No Exit it’s Only a Matter of Time Before Your Appomattox Moment Arrives
Update on DOE/NNSA’s and CB&I AREVA MOX Services Problem-Plagued Plutonium Disposition Program
“Stumbling to Termination: Mixed Oxide Fuel Plant Construction at Savannah River Site – NNSA Admits MOX Plant Construction Problems & NRC Dodges Full Inspection of MOX Plant”
Read about:
Plutonium Disposition Cost Report Due Soon
NNSA Admits that Rumors about MOX Plant Construction Problems are True
Outside of MOX Plant Not Finished, Contrary to what has been Claimed and Reported
Waste Solidification Building (WSB) – for Nuclear Waste from MOX Plant – to Go On Standby
Plutonium Oxide Production for MOX Facility (Temporarily) Halted at SRS as Aging HB-Line Faces Operational Problems
NRC’s Annual Meeting on April 16 on MOX Plant Construction Could Produce Fireworks as there may not be Proper Oversight of Construction by the NRC, NNSA or CB&I AREVA MOX Services
Packaging of Plutonium as Waste Set to Resume at SRS
The report was submitted for the record of the South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council (GNAC), which met in Columbia, SC on April 9, 2015, and is being digitally distributed.
Comments on the quick update are welcome: srswatch@gmail.com. Of special interest would be information from the NNSA/DOE, CB&I AREVA MOX Services, Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Joe Wilson as to how the MOX project can be made financially viable. But waiting over the past ten years for a response to that appeal has proven to be like “waiting for a nuclear Godot.”
Given that the MOX construction is getting $345 million annually, we can’t get the math to work give that another $7 billion are yet to be spent on the MOX plant construction, which includes the stunning $1.8 billion start-up cost. So, it’s going to take another 20 years just to build and start up the MOX plant (if design problems personnel issues and technical glitches don’t otherwise sink that effort)? And the estimated $670 million/year operating cost of the MOX plant – up from $543 million/year in Fiscal Year 2014 – all by itself blows the budget. PLEASE, show us how any piece of this financial mess fits together. NNSA/DOE, CB&I AREVA MOX Services, Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Joe Wilson: after so many years of waiting for your path forward, give it at least a feeble shot – take your hands out of the federal piggy bank for a few minutes and explain how the tax-payer funded finances of MOX could possibly work. If you can’t clearly explain how the MOX jigsaw fits over the next 20, 30, 40 years then stop wasting tax payer funds and find more productive work. And, as you head out the door, please have the decency to advocate for viable plutonium disposition options!
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1. Sometime in April (late April, perhaps, or not…) – release by DOE of “draft environmental assessment” on import to SRS of commercial German spent fuel, for processing and dumping into the waste tanks, followed by a 45-day comment period and public meeting (likely in N. Augusta, SC); see June 4, 2014 Federal Register notice here (with date of initial meeting last year); DOE-SRS contact: nepa@srs.gov
2. April 9 – South Carolina Governor’s Nuclear Advisory Council (GNAC), 1 p.m., 209 Gressette Building, state capitol complex, downtown Columbia, SC; agenda linked here.
3. April 14 – SRS Citizen Advisory Board (SRS CAB) meeting of Strategic & Legacy Management and Facilities Disposition & Site Remediation committees, 4:30 p.m. – 8:20 p.m., New Ellenton Community Center, 212 Pine Hill Avenue, New Ellenton, SC 29809; SRS CAB website linked here.
[~April 15: DOE delivery to Congress of plutonium disposition cost report, hopefully to simultaneously be made public. Cost of mismanaged MOX plant construction project now at $12.7 billion, likely to go higher. disposal of plutonium as waste will be officially shown to cost much, much less than MOX.]
4. April 15 – SRS Citizen Advisory Board (SRS CAB) meeting of Waste Management and Nuclear Materials committees, 4:30 p.m. – 8:20 p.m., New Ellenton Community Center, 212 Pine Hill Avenue, New Ellenton, SC 29809; SRS CAB website linked here.
5. April 16 – annual Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting on regulation of construction by CB&I AREVA MOX Services of the $12.7-billion plutonium fuel (MOX) plant at SRS, 6-7 p.m., New Ellenton, SC – this meeting is shaping up to be very interesting as the NRC wants a cursory meeting but inspection problems will be discussed. NRC meeting notice linked here. NRC contact: william.gloersen@nrc.gov
6. April 22-23 – DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) meeting of EM “Site Specific Advisory Board” (SSAB) chairs’ meeting, Double Tree Hotel in Augusta, GA (2651 Perimeter Parkway) – gathering of all the DOE site-specific boards, like the SRS CAB, to discuss over-arching DOE clean-up issues; SSAB website linked here. Contact to ask for agenda: Elizabeth.Schmitt@em.doe.gov
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PLUTONIUM ALERT!
DOE will soon release its report to Congress on the life-cycle cost of two plutonium disposition options: MOX and disposal of plutonium as blended down waste. Watch for the report around April 15-16, if DOE actually delivers it to Congress and makes it publicly available.
PREDICTION: The report will officially confirm that the MOX option is far more costly than disposal of plutonium of that waste that it is. On release of the report, there will be much hand wringing by MOX boosters and CB&I AREVA MOX Services (designing and building the $12.7 billion MOX plant at SRS) and their political minions (primarily Senator Lindsey Graham and Representative Joe Wilson) but they will produce no report of their own. Congress will finally be forced to take in to account that MOX isn’t financially sustainable and can’t continue. But will Congress hold accountable those DOE mangers and contractors responsible for the massive MOX boondoggle?
The handwriting remains on the wall for the fate of the MOX boondoggle.