Funding for the Savannah River Site MOX facility would vanish under President Donald Trump's 2018 budget request, drawing criticism from fellow Republican lawmakers.
Trump's budget was released Tuesday. It proposes ceasing altogether last year's annual baseline funding of $340 million a year for construction. Instead, it calls for spending $270 million to terminate MOX, and another $9 million to pursue downblending, an alternative plutonium disposition method, according to Trump's budget request.
"The Budget proposes to terminate the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) project and to pursue an alternative disposition method that will achieve significant long-term savings," the budget states.
The budget proposal also raises the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, budget to $10.8 billion, a 7.8 percent increase over 2017 levels.
The increases are aimed at meeting "the Administration's requirements to modernize the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and infrastructure," the NNSA said in a news release.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., both issued statements critical of clipping MOX.
Wilson said terminating MOX risks turning South Carolina into a permanent nuclear dump.
"MOX is the only facility in the nation that, when completed, would be able to convert weapons-grade plutonium into green fuel," Wilson said. "I also remain concerned about broader impacts to the other critical missions at the Savannah River Site."
Graham said discontinuing MOX runs contrary to a U.S-Russian deal for each nation to dispose of 34 metric tons of defense plutonium using the MOX method.
The Upstate senator said funding MOX would actually "help patch things up" with the Russians, who suspended participation in a nuclear non-proliferation agreement. He said terminating MOX continues the status quo of Trump's predecessor, former President Barack Obama, who also tried to shutdown MOX.
"I was hoping the Trump Administration’s budget proposal would mark a clean break from Obama’s failed approach to MOX," Graham's statement said. "Instead, it appears they are doubling-down."
NNSA administrator Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday the MOX condition is one of many Russia has placed on the deal, known officially as the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, or PMDA.
Klotz said Russia also wants the U.S. to pay reparations for sanctions imposed on Russia over the recent invasion in Crimea. He also cited concerns over Russia's track record on human rights.
"I do not think we in the U.S. can agree to those other stipulations," Klotz said.
"Our sense is they (Russians) have stepped away from this agreement and their terms for returning to it are terms we simply cannot meet," Klotz continued. "What that basically means is we need to move forward with a faster, cheaper and less risky (and proven) method of disposing of excess plutonium."
The MOX facility as designed would convert defense plutonium into fuel for commercial reactors.
Downblending, or dilute and dispose, is an alternative form of plutonium disposition in which defense plutonium is mixed with other materials to reduce its radioactivity.
The Trump administration's plan is to ship downblended defense plutonium to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico for burial.
"Due to the (MOX) project's 350-percent cost growth and a 32-year schedule slip, both the Department of Energy and external independent analyses have consistently concluded that the MOX approach to plutonium disposition is significantly costlier and would require a much higher annual budget than an alternate disposition method, Dilute and Dispose," the budget states.
Overall, the president's proposed budget cuts U.S. Department of Energy annual funding to $28 billion, a $1.7 billion (5.6 percent) decrease, the budget states.
The budget does, however, request $120 million to restart the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository in Nevada. Yucca was shutdown by the Obama administration.
On Monday, Graham called upon the president to continue MOX.
"Obama recommended to terminate (MOX) with no viable alternatives, which I think represents government at its worst," Graham said Monday in a telephone interview with the Aiken Standard.
Per the NNSA's budget, if approved, the MOX contractor would have 90 days to develop a plan to terminate MOX and secure sensitive materials.
A final estimate to complete the shutdown process would be due by late 2018. Final termination would be completed sometime in 2020, budget records state.
Other SRS appropriations
Also included within the proposed budget are funds to modernize the infrastructure for tritium production at SRS.
Tritium is an isotope of hydrogen gas that's a vital component in nuclear weapons, according to the SRS website. Tritium is extracted by irradiating special rods.
Trump's budget allocates $198.1 million to tritium sustainment nationwide, a $95 million increase over 2016 levels, NNSA budget figures show.
Klotz said tritium work is expected to ramp up at SRS. He said the site normally performs one tritium extraction a year, but is expected to do three extractions in 2017.
An additional $6.8 million specifically has been budgeted for uplift at SRS for the tritium work, Klotz said.
The budget also proposes $1.4 billion – a $111 million increase – to provide support for the liquid tank management program, as well as continuing construction and commissioning activities for the Salt Waste Processing Facility, or SWPF.
The SWPF was finished in the summer of 2016. Startup is expected in 2018.
Additional items funded in Trump's budget request include construction of Saltstone Disposal Unit No. 7, design for Saltstone Disposal units 8 and 9, and operation of the Actinide Removal Process and Modular Caustic Side Extraction Unit, records state.
