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MOX Program Faces Obstacles

By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire

June 26, 2006

The effort to dispose of nearly 70 tons of weapon-grade plutonium in the United States and Russia is under fire in this budget season from U.S. lawmakers displeased by lack of progress in the program and its spiraling cost estimates (see GSN, May 26). The House of Representatives last month passed an energy bill that would strip all funding for the program in fiscal 2007. Other legislation has cut support for the Russian effort and demanded reports on the project from the Energy Department.

“It’s clearly a program in trouble. Whether it’s the end of it, I don’t know,” said William Hoehn, Washington office director for the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council. The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration said it is preparing the congressionally requested information, and that the program should not yet be counted out.

“It is still very early in the budget process, and no decisions on MOX funding are final. NNSA is working with Congress to ensure that the president’s request is fully funded,” spokeswoman Julianne Smith said by e-mail. “NNSA has sufficient funds to begin construction of the MOX facility, and is proceeding with plans to begin construction this fall.”

Moscow and Washington in 2000 each agreed to eliminate 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium by converting the material into mixed-oxide fuel that could be used in nuclear power plants. Fabrication facilities were to be built and operated in tandem.

The start of construction of both plants has been delayed by disagreements on the level of liability protection to be given to U.S. contractors working on the Russian site. That issue is reported to be resolved, though no formal announcement has been issued.

Now impeding progress is Moscow’s demand that the United States and its allies supply full funding for a MOX fabrication facility in Russia and a light-water reactor that would burn the fuel. Should that fail to occur, Russia favors using a different type of reactor that could produce more plutonium than it eliminates.

Meanwhile, the anticipated price to design and build the U.S. plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has risen from $1 billion to $3.5 billion, the House Appropriations Committee said. The start of plutonium disposition has been pushed back from 2009 to 2015, according to the Energy Department inspector general.

These developments have not pleased legislators. “To date, Congress has appropriated $1.37 billion for the domestic MOX program facilities without any nonproliferation benefit accrued to the U.S. taxpayer,” the Appropriations Committee said in its report on the fiscal 2007 energy and water development bill. “With the Russian government abandoning the MOX-light water reactor strategy for surplus Russian plutonium, it is clear to the committee that there is no longer any justification for proceeding unilaterally with the U.S. MOX program,” it added.

The Energy Department for fiscal 2007 requested $603 million for fissile materials disposition, of which nearly $400 million was to be directed toward MOX program and construction costs in the United States, one expert said. The $34.7 million requested to support the Russian effort would be covered by previous appropriations.

The Appropriations Committee directed that there be no funding next year for the Russian MOX project or for construction of the U.S. MOX conversion plant. Design work and other commitments here are also to be quickly ended. Funding cut from the MOX project would be redirected to other programs, with $111 million going toward development of a plutonium immobilization site at Savannah River. There, the material would be mixed with high-level radioactive waste to become “self-protecting from a lethality standpoint,” a committee staff member said. The committee also called for a report that would include cost estimates for “all reasonable domestic plutonium disposition alternatives.”

Other committees have taken less sweeping action. The House Armed Services Committee cut funding for construction of the U.S. site from $289 million to $174 million, due to concerns about the project and the existence of millions of dollars of unused funding from prior years, a panel aide said. To receive anything more than $50 million, though, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman must first certify that the MOX plan is the most fiscally and technological efficient alternative for disposition, and respond to cost, management and schedule issues raised by the DOE inspector general.

The panel recommended cutting the entire $34.7 million outlay for construction of the Russian facility. However, $10 million left from previous budgets could be supplied after Bodman certifies that Washington and Moscow have come to agreement on a disposition plan “consistent with the intent” of the 2000 pact. “That plan could be something other than MOX,” the aide said.

The Senate Armed Services Committee backed full funding for projects in both countries, but set stipulations on delivery of most of the money. The energy secretary must provide details of the technology to be used in Russia, along with the type, cost and schedule for U.S. assistance to that program. An independent estimate is to be prepared on the cost of the U.S. facility and Bodman is required to certify in writing that the Bush administration plans to use MOX technology even if Russia does not.  

The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to take action on the energy bill. The panel’s Energy and Water Subcommittee is scheduled to meet tomorrow for its markup session of the House Appropriations legislation passed last month. Ultimately, House and Senate negotiators will meet in conference committees to prepare compromise funding plans for consideration by President George W. Bush.

The growing concerns about MOX plans has promoted reconsideration of other plutonium disposition technologies that had fallen by the wayside, said Matthew Bunn, senior research associate at Harvard University’s Project on Managing the Atom.

“To a large degree we’re almost back to where we were … a decade ago,” he said. “We’re sort of back to discussing the basics of what sort of reactors or other technologies we should use, if we’re going to move forward at all. There are starting to be some people who are talking about, let’s just store it, let’s not bother with disposition at all.”

The fight is not yet over. Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and the congressional delegation from South Carolina can be expected to push to reinstate funding for the MOX project, Bunn said. “We do not feel that we have closed the door on the U.S. MOX project as part of a mosaic of nonproliferation cooperation with the Russians,” said the House Armed Services Committee aide. “One has to say, if you don’t do MOX what are you going to do?”

While the international community is not likely to pay for the entire Russian program, planning continues for eliminating plutonium there with partial support from Moscow, NNSA spokeswoman Smith said. An agreement on liability should be signed “in the near future,” she said.

Moscow is willing to take up some of the financial burden of the project if allowed to use the technology of its choosing — which is not expected to be the more proliferation-resistant light-water reactor. The fast-neutron reactors it favors generate more energy, but without modifications would also produce more weapon-grade plutonium than is consumed, Bunn said. Modifications made to reverse that ratio could also be someday undone.

“The question is, as soon as the agreement expires, are we going to have helped Russia put in place giant plutonium production factories,” he said. “There’s a bunch of serious policy issues that I hope someone in the government is seriously working their way through as we speak.” With $570 million set aside from prior years, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to pour concrete this fall for the U.S. MOX site, Smith said. Equipment purchases and software design will proceed alongside construction.

Bunn said he could not predict what would ultimately happen to the program. He argued, though, that the initiative as it stands would have limited effect on the danger posed by weapon-grade plutonium. Russia has 170 tons of separated plutonium, while the United States has just less than 100 tons. Both countries would maintain their ability to produce more plutonium. “If you’re only going to do 34 tons and then dust off your hands and walk away, I think it’s not worth the money,” Bunn said.

The program would not necessarily be closed after reaching its present goal, the House Armed Services Committee aide said. “I don’t think anybody’s ruled out … going further than that, once we have this thing going,” he said.