DOE delays waste plan

Friday, Aug. 10, 2001 | 11:14 a.m.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has delayed a plan to turn tons of plutonium into glass logs destined for a proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository because the cost of a conversion program exploded by $2 billion.

An Energy Department report, revealed Thursday by a private research group, concluded that the cost of disposing of the plutonium will be at least $6.6 billion over 22 years, roughly 50 percent more than estimated two years ago.

The Clinton administration had planned to handle 50 metric tons of surplus plutonium by converting 33 metric tons into a mixed-oxide, called MOX, fuel for burning in civilian power reactors. Another 17 metric tons, considered too impure for using in reactors, would be formed into glass blocks to be buried 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas in Yucca Mountain.

But the repository has not passed scientific tests and would not open until 2010 at the earliest. Abraham delayed the glass block conversion to help control costs of the cleanup program, the report said.

Yucca is the only site under study by the DOE as a high-level nuclear waste repository for an estimated 77,000 tons of radioactive waste from commercial reactors and weapons production. The DOE has spent $7 billion over 20 years to study the mountain and expects to recommend the site later this year.

The Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington-based group that advocates nuclear non-proliferation, disclosed the 65-page DOE report, which was completed for Congress in March but never released. The report details why the plutonium conversion project's costs ballooned.

In 1996 the DOE estimated the entire plutonium program would cost $2.4 billion. By 1999 the expenses had jumped to $4.15 billion, a 73 percent increase, the report says. The latest estimate is $6.6 billion.

DOE's report blamed most of the increases on stricter measures needed to protect a reprocessing plant for the plutonium at Savannah River, S.C. The DOE said more steel for reinforcing the flooring against earthquakes, tighter security and better safeguards to contain radiation are necessary.

"This shows a massive cost escalation," Tom Clements, the institute's executive director, said. Since the MOX conversion is driving up the price, the DOE should put all the plutonium into glass logs to reduce the risks of nuclear proliferation, he said.

The institute opposes using plutonium as fuel in civilian nuclear reactors.

Abraham said that it was too expensive to pursue both programs and that DOE would focus for now on building the MOX conversion facilities at the Savannah River complex. He suggested the program to immobilize the plutonium in glass blocks would resume later.

Meanwhile South Carolina officials are complaining that the DOE will ship tons of plutonium from its weapons facilities nationwide to the Savannah River facility without assurances the material will ever be removed from the state.

South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges said recently he fears that the DOE "plans to renege on many of its prior commitments" to the state.

DOE spokesman Joe Davis said that Abraham talked to Hodges last week and is eager to solve the dispute. Converting the plutonium into glass blocks is expected to resume in the next decade. And they would eventually be shipped to Yucca Mountain, if the repository opens.

Hodges has threatened to block plutonium shipments into South Carolina unless there is an exit strategy guaranteed by the DOE.

Former Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus set up roadblocks years ago to keep spent-fuel shipments out of that state until the DOE agreed to a 30-year temporary storage contract.

The Associated Press

contributed to this story.