Billions of dollars and late? Biden’s budget highlights potential SRS pit problems

• By Colin Demarest cdemarest@aikenstandard.com
• June 4, 2021

Federal budget documents published late last month paint an alarming picture for the future of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, the proposed Savannah River Site complex where dozens of nuclear weapon cores could be produced every year.

Tucked into a detailed fiscal year 2022 breakdown of potential National Nuclear Security Administration spending and schedules and expectations are two shoptalk sentences that, when paired, publicly confirm what some have deemed an open secret in Washington: Making 50 plutonium pits in South Carolina by 2030 is likely not possible, and getting to that point could cost many billions of dollars.

The Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility – the phoenix that could rise from the ashes of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, a failed nuclear fuel plant – could come online as late as the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2035, according to preliminary plans cited in the budget binders. And it could run some $11 billion, far more than previous projections.

The price tag alone, Savannah River Site Watch Director Tom Clements said in an email, is breathtaking. And lawmakers are sure to question it.

“Congress should reject the extravagant spending levels that DOE is proposing for production of plutonium pits and stop consideration of SRS for this dangerous and costly mission,” Clements urged.

Kingston Reif, the director of disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, was unsurprised by the new numbers. The National Nuclear Security Administration, he suggested, has a track record of failing “to accurately estimate the cost and schedule of major projects.”

“The sooner the Biden administration adjusts course,” he said, “the fewer taxpayer dollars will be wasted chasing an unnecessary mirage.”

The information presented in President Joe Biden’s latest budget blueprint cleaves with comments made days ago by his choice to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration, Jill Hruby.

This table, showing project milestones for the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility, was included in fiscal year 2022 budget documents. A project is effectively finished at CD-4, or Critical Decision-4. (Photo provided/DOE) Photo provided/DOE

While production of 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site was “originally planned for 2030,” Hruby told senators during her confirmation hearing, it “is likely to, now, be somewhere between 2030 and 2035.” Hruby is a former director of Sandia National Laboratories – that is to say she is familiar with the nuclear weapons ecosystem and the Energy Department agency she may soon head up.

Getting the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility going as close as possible to 2030, budget documents note, “remains a high priority” and is needed to sustain the nation’s aging nuclear weapons. A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesperson offered a similar assessment last month: “The successful execution of the SRPPF project at the Savannah River Site is vital to restore the nation’s ability to produce plutonium pits to ensure the long-term effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.”

A milestone decision concerning plutonium pit production at the Savannah River Site, about 30 minutes south of Aiken, is expected in weeks. Los Alamos Study Group’s Greg Mello, another independent monitor, expects more shoes to drop.

“Pit production is expensive, difficult, dangerous and unnecessary any time soon, even if you want to keep a huge arsenal, which is madness to begin with,” he said in a lengthy statement. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, as they say.”

The president’s fiscal year 2022 budget pitch includes $19.7 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration. The agency’s acting boss, Dr. Charles Verdon, said the proposed budget provides what is necessary.

“The funding enables NNSA to execute its long-standing nuclear modernization efforts begun under the Obama-Biden administration,” he said, “advances global nonproliferation efforts, ensures the Office of Naval Reactors remains at the forefront of technological developments, and supports U.S. leadership in science and technology.”

More broadly, $46.2 billion has been proposed for the Energy Department.