[ RadSafe ] Bomb-Grade Plutonium Conversion Delayed

[Gerry Blackwood]

Bomb-Grade Plutonium Conversion Delayed

   Sammy Fretwell 
   The State 
   2/10/2005 
   (for personal use only)

The Department of Energy, which has assured S.C. leaders it would not leave tons of bomb-grade plutonium at the Savannah River Site, now says it cannot meet a schedule to begin converting the deadly material into fuel for nuclear power plants.

In letters Monday to Congress, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said it will be “impossible” to meet the production objective for making mixed oxide fuel by January 2009, as required by federal law. Bodman’s letters said the department plans to submit a revised construction schedule.

He blamed a continuing dispute with Russia for the delays. The U.S. and Russia, according to a 2000 agreement, plan to render 68 metric tons of surplus plutonium useless for nuclear weapons. But the two nations have been unable to agree on “liability protections” for U.S. work performed in Russia, Bodman’s letter said. The Russians also plan a mixed oxide — called MOX — fuel plant with U.S. assistance.

Bodman’s letter comes three years after then-Gov. Jim Hodges predicted the Department of Energy might leave tons of plutonium at SRS forever. The Democrat sued unsuccessfully to block plutonium shipments from other federal nuclear weapons complexes to SRS without ironclad assurances the material eventually would leave the Aiken- area weapons complex.

Though he lost the suit, Hodges’ concerns prompted Congress to pass a law setting a firm schedule for turning the plutonium into MOX. The first major milestone was to make a ton of MOX in 2009. All the fuel would have to be made by Jan. 1, 2019, the law said.

If the DOE can’t produce the MOX as planned, it could be fined up to $100 million a year and required to move any plutonium it sent to SRS out of South Carolina, according to the law.

Bodman said the agency will work to honor its commitments to South Carolina.

U.S. Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., said the delay is disappointing, though not surprising.

“This delays the best way of keeping weapons-grade plutonium out of the hands of rogues and terrorists, which is to process it into fuel and burn it,” Spratt said. “For South Carolina, this means that we are going to be stuck with plutonium in our state for longer than we were told.”

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said the government’s only option is “to make sure the Russian program gets up to speed.”

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., noted that President Bush’s proposed 2006 budget contains more than $300 million for construction of the $4 billion MOX complex.

News that the 2009 MOX production schedule could not be met came at the same time the DOE announced it would further delay the start of construction of the mixed oxide fuel plant from May of this year until May 2006. It originally was to start in 2004.

The mixed oxide fuel plant would employ more than 1,000 people directly or indirectly. The fuel would be burned by Duke Energy at power plants near Charlotte.


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