The United States has a stockpile of over forty metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium that has been designated as excess to military needs and is slated for disposition. In 2007, the Department of Energy (DOE) began constructing the Mixed-Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina in order to process the plutonium into MOX fuel for use in light-water reactors. However, in 2018, as the result of extensive delays and ballooning costs, the Department of Energy (DOE) terminated the trouble MOX project. Instead, DOE has proposed using a process called “dilute and dispose” (D&D) to convert the plutonium to a form less attractive for nuclear weapons use and suitable for disposal in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), a deep geologic repository in New Mexico. The current plan entails shipping plutonium pits from the Pantex Plant in Texas to Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for conversion to plutonium oxide, shipping the oxide to SRS for dilution and preparation of waste packages, and then shipping the waste product back to WIPP in New Mexico. Given the security risks associated with separated plutonium transport, DOE should reconsider this plan. Installation of process lines at Pantex for oxide production and dilution would eliminate two cross-country transport links and would be far more efficient. In addition, there is the possibility that some (or all) of the plutonium will be shipped instead to Idaho National Laboratory for conversion to fuel for the proposed Versatile Test Reactor. This alternative would also expose the plutonium to additional risks of theft or diversion during storage, transport, and processing. DOE should ensure that the approach it selects for plutonium disposition does not create unnecessary security risks.
Year
2020
Abstract