Budget for MOX must be returned
Friday, July 28, 2006
The House decision to leave the Mixed Oxide fuel facility out of the budget
for the coming year would leave the Savannah River Site in an awkward
position.
The House budget took $368 million from the MOX facility that is under
construction at SRS. The MOX plant would take excess plutonium and fabricate a
fuel that can be used in reactors to produce electrical power. MOX would provide
our country with a means to eliminate much of the plutonium now stockpiled at
SRS.
Without the funding for MOX, however, tons of plutonium at SRS that have been
shipped into SRS would be left here with no route forward. There would be no
path for disposing of the weapons material, nor would there be a means for
removing it to another site. Fortunately the Senate has put nerly $418 million
for MOX in its budget.
Plutonium was brought into SRS with the understanding that it would be dealt
with through MOX and through a second program to immobilize the material. That
immobilization strategy fell through, however, and now the House panel has
decided to render MOX plans impotent. That leaves SRS with tons of plutonium and
no plan to mix it into glass logs or MOX it into fuel. That is unacceptable.
MOX still offers the best way forward for disposal of this country’s excess
plutonium. It is time for Congress to keep its word to the country on the way it
is going to get rid of the tons of plutonium that are now in storage.
Legislators have offered no other suitable way to deal with the plutonium issue.
It is their duty to ensure that MOX is funded and the path for plutonium to
leave SRS is cleared.
.gif)
