Plutonium pit production for two U.S. sites

AIKEN, S.C. — The National Nuclear Security Administration has proposed producing plutonium pits at two locations, including the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

The Aiken Standard reports the NNSA wants to make 50 pits per year at SRS and the remaining 30 per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Establishing the pits requires discontinuing and repurposing the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, which is nearing completion, at SRS.

MOX, as it is called, was initially slated to open in 2016. It was designed to turn weapons-grade plutonium into commercial reactor fuel. However, the MOX project has been under fire.

A news release from NNSA said the two-pronged approach involving the pits “is the best way to manage the cost, schedule, and risk of such a vital undertaking.”

The newspaper, citing sources, reported that on Thursday, the same day the NNSA announced its pit production recommendation, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry executed a waiver to terminate MOX construction. Last month, Perry said MOX was “obscenely over-budget.” On May 9, Perry alluded that MOX was and continued to be a “questionable” expenditure.

Perry’s waiver promises there is a plutonium-processing MOX alternative, most likely a dilute-and-dispose, approach also supported by NNSA chief Lisa Gordon-Hagerty.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster called dilute-and-dispose “not logical” in March.

McMaster, a supporter of the MOX project, criticized the NNSA’s recommendation shortly after it was announced.

“The Department of Energy has been trying to shut down the MOX project for years, breaking a promise to the people of South Carolina and breaking federal law along the way,” McMaster said. “We will not accept it, and we will fight every step of the way to make sure South Carolina’s interests are protected.”

Several studies are needed and environmental concerns are to be addressed before dilute-and-dispose can fully proceed, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency letter sent on April 2. The EPA said agency involvement in the matter would be “premature.”