MOX: Billions Wasted on Product with No Buyers

April 3, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka

No customers - After spending more than $4 billion on the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at Savannah River, “the Department of Energy reportedly thinks it will cost $25 billion more to finish the project, which is now at least three years behind schedule. But worse than the cost-overruns and delays is the prospect of giving terrorists easier access to nuclear bomb-making material. There are few examples of government waste that can boast such an impressive list of liabilities,” writes Ryan Alexander in U.S. News.

--“On the surface, the program seems like a win-win: disposing of nuclear weapons while simultaneously supporting domestic energy production. The problem is that it is, in fact, too good to be true. In reality, the cost of the MOX program is not worth the energy derived. Converting weapons-grade plutonium to usable nuclear fuel requires the construction of a special facility, and once the MOX fuel is produced, and if that construction is successful, the project only succeeds if nuclear facilities buy this fuel.”

--”However, right now there is no demand for MOX fuel – literally, there are zero customers lined up. Any future customer would have to invest significantly in facility updates in order to handle fuel because the actual processing breaks down reactors much more quickly than conventional nuclear fuel. So there is no reason to believe demand will magically appear,” Alexander says. “We won’t know the future of the program until Congress passes a budget for the next fiscal year, but at least this year we have reason to hope the evidence of this project’s failures will finally lead to its cancellation.” Read the full article here. http://bit.ly/1fOFaJd

Halting construction - “Officials confirmed that an order to stop construction at the Savannah River Site’s MOX facility is on the horizon, but has not yet been issued,” writes Derek Asberry in the Aiken Standard. “The decision is based off the cost overruns and delays attached to the project, including a DOE study that said the program will have a $30 billion life-cycle cost.” Full story here. http://bit.ly/1kuXxWX

Save our nukes - “On Wednesday, lawmakers from nuclear states sent a letter to the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense requesting that they add language protecting intercontinental ballistic missiles, including those operated and maintained by Malmstrom Air Force Base,” reports Jenn Rowell for the Great Falls Tribune.

--“In the letter, Rep. Steve Daines, with Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., asked that the subcommittee add language to the defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2015” to include “that none of the funds provided under this act may be used to reduce, convert, decommission, or otherwise move to nondeployed status, or prepare to reduce, convert, decommission, or otherwise move to nondeployed status, any Minuteman III ballistic missile silo that contains a deployed missile as of Jan. 1, 2014. They also asked to add language blocking funding for the Air Force’s proposed environmental assessment of ICBMs.” Read the full article here. http://gftrib.com/1i4cNay

Tweet - @saftergood: Classified nuclear weapon drawings missing and mismanaged at national labs, says IG http://t.co/Ec8O7uivla

Commitment concerns - “Obama administration officials on Tuesday sought to downplay the likelihood that the recent crisis in Ukraine would undermine various arms control and nuclear security efforts,” reports Douglas Guarino for Global Security Newswire. “During a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing, administration officials faced questions regarding how Moscow's controversial annexation of the Crimea region could affect efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons across the globe, along with initiatives to secure nuclear materials inside Russia. Lawmakers also raised concerns about how Russia -- along with India, Pakistan and China -- did not sign onto certain pledges to improve nuclear security at a global leadership summit in the Netherlands last week.” Full article here. http://bit.ly/1lDQuz9

What to do about North Korea - “The most recent Pentagon Defense review cited North Korea as a direct and growing threat to the United States. How much of a threat are they currently?” North Korea expert Joel Wit explores that question in an interview with Ploughshares Fund. “How much of a threat they are depends on how you think about it. If you think about North Korea as a threat to our regional allies in Northeast Asia or to U.S. interests in the region, we should be concerned. If you’re thinking about it as a direct threat to the continental United States, we’re not there yet and won’t be for a while. But right now, North Korea is moving forward its nuclear weapons program and we’re doing nothing to stop them,” Wit says.

--”We must be willing to have a dialogue without pre-conditions,” Wit says. If we see that dialogue isn’t going anywhere, we could always walk away. The administration isn’t willing to do that because they are afraid of domestic political criticism. So what? We tried, they weren’t serious, let’s put together a policy that might be effective even without diplomacy. We’re not doing any of that. The administration’s policy seems to be only to keep North Korea off the front page of the newspapers. That’s not going to work. The fact is that this problem is festering and getting worse.” Read the full interview with Ploughshares Fund. http://bit.ly/1dQlg5u

Not business as usual - “The top U.S. Treasury Department official responsible for sanctions said on Wednesday there is no evidence that any companies are taking advantage of a preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran by reaching new deals in Iran,” reports Patricia Zengerle in Reuters. “We have not seen companies anywhere — Europe, the Gulf, Asia — trying to take advantage of this ... narrow opening, the quite limited suspensions of the sanctions to get into the Iranian market, enter into business deals that would otherwise be sanctionable," Treasury Under Secretary David Cohen said at a Senate hearing. Full story here. http://reut.rs/1i4f1Xt

Tweet - @Cirincione: At @RANDCorporation, @wrightr says real battle in Iran will begin the "day after a deal." How far will we go? Where will this lead?

Global no first use - “Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday called for the establishment of a global convention on a no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons,” Global Security Newswire reports. “Singh touted a no-first use convention as an important step that could ‘open the ways to gradual reduction and finally elimination through a nuclear weapon convention.’”

--”’What is important today is an agreed multilateral framework that can involve all states possessing nuclear weapons," the prime minister said. "What is needed is focus on practical measures that reduce nuclear dangers." Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/1ijHeuD

Quick-hit:

--”U.S.-British Talks Spotlight Uncertainty in Both Nuclear Arsenals” in Global Security Newswire. http://bit.ly/1ijGiX8