Mixed-oxide fuel facility is $2.5 billion over budget

Design and construction of the Department of Energy's mixedoxide fuel (MOX) fabrication facility at Savannah River "will significantly exceed" previous cost estimates, according to an audit by DOE's inspector general. The report says DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration now believes the facility will cost about $3.5 billion to build, which is $2.5 billion more than NNSA reported to Congress in 2002. In September 2000, the U.S. and Russia signed an agreement that committed each nation to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. To meet this goal, the MOX facility will combine plutonium oxide from weapons with uranium oxide to produce a mixed oxide, which it will fabricate into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. The report says NNSA already has spent $453 million of the project's $1 billion total budget just on design activities, but it has completed only 70% of the work. NNSA now estimates that it will cost a total of $744 million for the design work and $2.8 billion to construct the facility.