South Carolina sues US Department of Energy over MOX facility budget cut

By Lenka Kollar

In the fiscal year 2015 federal budget request, funding for the  MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site (SRS) was cut and now South Carolina is suing the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to bring the project back. The facility is 60% complete and employs about 1,800 workers. The project is over budget and DOE says that the resources aren't there to continue. However, stopping the project would violate a nonproliferation treaty with Russia to get rid of weapons-grade nuclear material.

MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility construction in South Carolina

The purpose of the MOX Project is to covert excess weapons-grade plutonium into commercial fuel for nuclear power plants. MOX stands for "mixed oxide" fuel, mixed because the fuel contains uranium oxide and plutonium oxide, instead of just uranium oxide. Uranium is a naturally-occuring element that is mined from the ground but plutonium is not naturally-occuring. The U.S. produced a stockpile of plutonium for nuclear weapons, but the plutonium can also be used for nuclear energy. Because some uranium in a nuclear reactor turns into plutonium, it is already a proven fuel for nuclear energy. Once used in a reactor, the plutonium fuel becomes too radioactive to use in a weapon.

The MOX Project is a great idea both for getting rid of weapons material and for using existing material to produce electricity. However, the project has taken more resources than expected and thus the DOE has run out of funding. 

Do you think that the federal government should continue to fund the MOX Project?