White House Chronicle

News Analysis With a Sense of Humor

  • Home
  • King’s Commentaries
  • Random Features
  • Photos
  • Public Speaker
  • WHC Episodes
  • About WHC
  • Carrying Stations
  • ME/CFS Alert
  • Contact Us

Obama’s Second Blow to a Nuclear Waste Solution

July 26, 2015 by Llewellyn King Leave a Comment

When the Obama administration came into power, one of its first actions was to end work on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. In so doing, it delivered a shuddering blow to the U.S. nuclear industry, trashing the project when it was nearly ready to open. The cost to taxpayers was about $15 billion.

Now the administration is going through the motions to suspend another costly nuclear waste investment when it is about 67 percent complete. Money expended: $4.5 billion. Shutdown cost: $1 billion.

The object of its latest volte face is the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) on the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site in South Carolina. Work started on the facility in 2007, with a 2016 startup envisaged.

But unlike Yucca Mountain, few people outside of the nuclear industry know about the genesis and purpose of the MFFF project.

The project was initiated as a result of a 2000 agreement with the Russians, later amended, in which both countries agreed to dispose of no less than 34 metric tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium — the transuranic element that is the key component of a modern nuclear weapon, and remains radioactive essentially forever.

The DOE’s plan was for the facility to mix the plutonium with uranium to create a fuel for civil nuclear reactors to produce electricity. This recycling technology, developed in the United States originally, has been used in France since 1995.

The DOE has not yet taken a wrecking ball to the MFFF, but it is taking the first steps toward demolition. On June 25, the DOE issued a press release that the industry read as a precursor to a death warrant. The department announced that it was creating a “Red Team,” headed by Thom Mason, director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., to review “plutonium disposition options and make recommendations.”

The DOE statement said the team would “assess the MOX [mixed oxide] fuel approach, the downblending and disposal approach, and any other approaches the team deems feasible and cost effective.”

Industry sources say the choice is between the MOX approach and so-called downblending. In that application, the plutonium is not burned up but is spiked and mixed with a modifier that makes it unusable in weapons. Then it would be disposed either in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M., or in a new repository, if one is commissioned.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has been pushing the downblending option. But it is using numbers that many believe to be extremely speculative. They come from a private consulting firm hired by the DOE, Aerospace Corporation.

The first number is that the life-cycle cost of the MFFF would be $30 billion, while the life-cycle cost for downblending would be only $9 billion. These numbers are contested by the contractor building the facility, a joint venture between the construction firm Chicago Bridge & Iron Company and the French nuclear technology giant Areva. They point out that plutonium has never been downblended and that the WIPP in New Mexico has had its own problems. On Feb. 5, 2014, the plant closed after a salt truck caught fire; there was an unrelated radiological release nine days later. The plant is still closed.

It is believed that Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz favors the MFFF approach as a permanent and scientifically attractive solution, rather than burying the plutonium in New Mexico or elsewhere. However, he may be overruled by the White House and the military chiefs, who know that they are going to have to raise money on a huge scale for nuclear weapons modernization, in light of the deteriorated relationship with Russia and China’s continuing military buildup.

If the MFFF is canceled, it will join a long list of nuclear projects that the government has ordered up and canceled later, often with a huge waste of public money. Another negative is the wastage of engineering talent. Families move to sites, buy houses and send their children to local schools. Then come the pink slips and years of demanding engineering effort are nixed by policy, politics and general incoherence in Washington.

Email, RSS Follow
Email

Filed Under: King's Commentaries Tagged With: AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Areva, Carlsbad, Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, Department of Energy, DOE, MFFF, Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, MOX, Nevada, New Mexico, nuclear, nuclear industry, nuclear waste, plutonium, President Barack Obama, Savannah River, South Carolina, uranium, Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, WIPP, Yucca Mountain

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

White House Chronicle on Social

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube
Police Beatings Deserve Outrage, but It Isn’t Easy Being Blue

Police Beatings Deserve Outrage, but It Isn’t Easy Being Blue

Llewellyn King

Police excess gained huge attention after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and again after the alleged beating death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis last month. But police excess isn’t new. A friend, who had been drinking and could be quite truculent when drunk, was severely beaten in the police cells in […]

IRENA Panel Urges Youth To Move from Anger to Action on Energy Transition

IRENA Panel Urges Youth To Move from Anger to Action on Energy Transition

Linda Gasparello

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate change canary, didn’t participate in the 13th assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), held in Abu Dhabi on Jan. 14 to 15. Perhaps it was because she was otherwise engaged in protesting against the razing of the German village of Lützerath for […]

Big Tech First Cornered the Ad Market, Now Practices Censorship

Big Tech First Cornered the Ad Market, Now Practices Censorship

Llewellyn King

Big tech has siphoned off advertising and wants to be a global censor.  The Department of Justice has filed suit against Google for its predatory advertising practices. Bully! Not that I think Google is inherently evil, venal or greedier than any other corporation. Indeed, it is a source of much good through its awesome search […]

Going Green Is a Palpable Need but a Tough Transition

Going Green Is a Palpable Need but a Tough Transition

Llewellyn King

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — I first heard about global warming being attributable to human activity about 50 years ago. Back then, it was just a curiosity, a matter of academic discussion. It didn’t engage the environmental movement, which marshaled opposition to nuclear and firmly advocated coal as an alternative. Twenty years on, there […]

Copyright © 2023 · White House Chronicle Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in