EDITORIAL: MOX facility taking shape
For the past two years, hundreds of workers have been going to the Savannah River Site each day to work on a new facility that will turn the nation's nuclear swords into peaceful plowshares.
The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS is to turn some 34 tons of weapons grade plutonium into a component for fuel rod assemblies that will power nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Over the anticipated 20 years of its production lifetime, the MOX facility at SRS will be taking plutonium that once was part of the United States' nuclear weapons arsenal and create material to help our energy generation.
Initial approval of the MOX facility was made in 1999, but because of funding issues it took until 2007 for work to begin on the facility. Shaw AREVA MOX Services, the company which is building the facility, celebrated two full years of construction work earlier this week. Rising from the sand hills of western South Carolina, the multi-billion dollar MOX facility is well on its way with workers installing steel and concrete and the miles of cables and other components needed to take the weapons grade plutonium and make it into a fuel to enhance human existence.
In addition to working toward a goal of removing the 34 tons of plutonium from the nuclear weapons arsenal, Shaw AREVA MOX has become a solid corporate citizen, giving back to the communities which provide homes for many of its employees.
We celebrate with Shaw AREVA MOX and the entire MOX team their two years of efforts in this peacemaking endeavor. As SRS helped to win the Cold War, undertakings such as the MOX facility will help sustain peace among nations as it fulfills its mission over the next two decades.