MOX


Another Nail in the Coffin of the Misguided MOX Program

, senior scientist

March 23, 2018 11:29 AM EDT

In the Fiscal Year 2018 omnibus spending bill passed by the House of Representatives yesterday and the Senate today, Congress is taking an encouraging step toward terminating the wasteful and dangerous Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Plant, under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The MOX plant, if completed, would be used to dispose of 34 metric tons of excess plutonium from the U.S. nuclear weapons program by turning it into fuel for nuclear reactors. However, the project is decades behind schedule and is now expected to cost upwards of $50 billion—ten times the original estimate. Read more >

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: NNSA’s FY18 Budget Request

, Washington representative and senior analyst

May 25, 2017 11:48 AM EDT

On Tuesday, May 23, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2018 (FY2018) budget request. In an overall federal budget where many, many programs faced severe budget cuts, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is on the receiving end of a proposed 11 percent budget increase (at least by the Trump administration’s accounting – more on that in a following post). Read more >

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Cuts to the Fissile Materials Stockpile

, analyst

December 12, 2016 10:58 AM EDT

The Final Countdown

The United States maintains stockpiles of weapons-usable fissile materials—plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU)—that are much larger than needed. This material is a security risk, and is also expensive to store safely. Some of this fissile material has already been declared “excess to military needs” and is awaiting disposition. Even after that excess material is disposed of, however, the United States will still have far more material than it needs for its current or future arsenal. President Obama should declare additional material excess and schedule it for disposition as soon as possible. If done correctly, this would reduce opportunities for nuclear terrorism. It would also be a step toward making nuclear reductions more difficult to reverse.

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Let’s Get a Better Deal on Plutonium Disposition

, senior scientist

November 22, 2016 11:48 AM EDT

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to renegotiate international agreements to get “better deals” for the United States. A good place for him to start would be the U.S.-Russia Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), which obligates each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of excess plutonium from their military stockpiles, so the dangerous material cannot easily be reused for nuclear weapons. Collectively, this plutonium is enough for more than 15,000 nuclear bombs. Read more >

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Another knock against MOX

, Washington representative and senior analyst

October 3, 2016 5:55 PM EDT

The MOX program has been staggering along for years, struggling for survival. Today’s news, that Russia is suspending the joint U.S.-Russian agreement to dispose of excess plutonium, should be the final blow that finishes this risky boondoggle off. It removes the sole remaining justification for the program, which was that only if the United States pursued MOX would Russia dispose of its plutonium. Read more >

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