The Government Project that is $6 Billion Over Budget and 10 Years Late

A facility to convert weapons-grade plutonium into mixed oxide fuel (MOX) for use in nuclear reactors that is billions over budget and years behind schedule may finally be laid to rest by President Barack Obama, whose budget for fiscal year 2014 cut its funding by $115 million and anticipates using “alternative plutonium disposition strategies.” Although South Carolina legislators are defending the program, which employs about 2,400 people, its economic problems and their lack of clout with a Democratic administration may doom their efforts.

Originally expected to be online by 2009 at a cost of $1.6 billion, the Savannah River, South Carolina, plant is 10 years behind schedule and the bill is up to $7.7 billion—so far. A recent life-cycle cost estimate for the MOX program calculated by environmental activist Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth foresees a price tag of about $22.11 billion. “It’s clear that the mismanaged MOX program has run head-on into fiscal realities and may be set for a phase out,” said Clements.

Neither the Department of Energy (DOE) nor its National Nuclear Security Administration, which is in charge of the facility, have released updated official performance or cost baselines for the project since 2008. They do estimate that it won't be ready to open until November 2019.

The MOX project suffers from problems both economic and environmental. On the financial side, one of the most highly touted advantages of the MOX approach, the fact that it yields fuel that can be sold to nuclear reactors, was fatally undermined when Savannah River lost its contract to sell MOX fuel to Duke Energy in 2008 and has been unable since to find another buyer.

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