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Savannah River Site’s MOX facility receives funding
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
The Senate Armed Services Committee has fully funded the Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication facility at the Savannah River Site for fiscal year 2006-2007.
The funding for the MOX facility totals $368.2 million, with $289.5 million going toward construction for the MOX program and $78.7 million approved for the Pit Assembly and Conversion facility on the site.
Just a week before the committee agreed to the funding, a House panel slashed $150 million in construction funding for the facility. However, Congressman Joe Wilson, R-S.C., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, was able to add $34.7 million back to the MOX program.
The site is also scheduled to receive $1.16 billion for cleanup that Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., was able to secure for the site. That figure is $50 million more than the current House Armed Services Committee figure and $80 million more than the president’s original budget request.
“I am pleased and grateful to the committee for fully funding the MOX program,” said Graham, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “With full funding, we’ll be able to start construction in the fall and move toward completing the facility. The MOX program is vital to our national security, and we will continue to work together to ensure it is adequately funded.”
The United States and Russia agreed in 2000 to each dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium by turning it into MOX fuel for use in existing commercial nuclear reactors.
Sixty-eight metric tons of plutonium is enough material to make 17,000 nuclear weapons.
After the MOX fuel has been created and irradiated in a nuclear reactor, the plutonium can no longer be used for nuclear weapons.
Russia, with help from the United States, had agreed to build a MOX plant like the one proposed for SRS, with the overall idea for both plants to anchor an international effort to transform the plutonium into commercial grade fuel in both countries.
Several other U.S. allies pledged money to the Russian project to help secure some of the most dangerous nuclear material in Europe.
Construction of the MOX facility at the SRS will begin in fall 2006. The construction will create 500 new jobs at the site.
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