Time may finally be running out on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, a multibillion-dollar, over-budget federal project that has been hard to kill. The Energy Department has already spent about $4.5 billion on the half-built plant near Aiken, S.C., designed to make commercial reactor fuel out of plutonium from nuclear bombs. New estimates place the ultimate cost of the facility at between $9.4 billion and $21 billion, and the outlay for the overall program, including related costs, could go as high as $30 billion. Officials warn that the delays in the so-called MOX program are so bad that the plant may not be ready to turn the first warhead into fuel until 2040.
New York Times 8th Feb 2016 read more »
The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday proposed scrapping a multibillion project in South Carolina to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium by turning it into fuel for nuclear reactors, and moved to bury the waste in New Mexico instead. Senior administration officials said the decision would save billions of dollars while speeding removal of plutonium stored at the department’s Savannah River site in South Carolina.
Reuters 9th Feb 2016 read more »