The U.S. Energy Department will hold a public meeting at North Augusta Municipal Center from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. today to discuss a series of possible changes in its evolving program to dispose of leftover plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads.
The modifications to the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement include several options that will affect Savannah River Site, where a $4.86 billion mixed oxide fuel facility is under construction.
Once completed, the MOX plant will be used to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium by blending it with uranium to manufacture fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
One of the proposed changes involves the fate of an additional 13 metric tons of plutonium, of which some could be added to the material destined for the MOX plant. The remainder could be shipped to the department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico; or processed at Savannah River Site's Defense Waste Processing Facility, where radioactive waste is blended with glass (a process called vitrification) and stored in steel canisters.
Also in the modifications to the environmental impact statement are provisions to evaluate the possibility of using MOX fuel in as many as five Tennessee Valley Authority nuclear power reactors.
Although TVA has not formally agreed to use the fuel, the authority did sign a letter of intent in 2009 to study that option. An earlier agreement, under which Duke Power Co. planned to use the fuel, lapsed and has not been resurrected.
The Energy Department is also evaluating two options within Savannah River Site to build facilities to disassemble plutonium pits removed from nuclear warheads and process the material into an oxide form suitable for use at the MOX plant.
The initial plan was to construct a freestanding Pit Disassembly & Conversion Facility adjacent to the MOX complex. An additional alternative in which existing buildings in the K Reactor area would house that process is also being studied.
Similar meetings were held earlier this month in Alabama and Tennessee. Today's meeting is the third of five, with two remaining events to be held Aug. 24 and Aug. 26 in Carlsbad and Santa Fe, N.M., respectively.
More background on SRS Plutonium: http://www.spdsupplementaleis.com/
If you go: The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration will hold a public scoping meeting on its ongoing Surplus Plutonium Disposition Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. today at the North Augusta Municipal Building.
Comments
MOX is a security, safety and cost nightmare. And, they still have no reactors willing to use the stuff. Testing MOX in Duke's Catawba reactor failed and Duke dropped out of the program, so why would anyone want the problematic MOX? Who is responsible for choosing this most expensive of plutonium disposition options? Big government gouges the tax payer again.
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