by Don Moniak
November 12, 2024
The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Savannah River Site (SRS) has two major milestones to achieve by 2037. One is legally binding, the other is a commitment that remains negotiable.
Surplus Weapons Plutonium
DOE is legally bound to removing 9.5 metric tons of surplus military plutonium to another state. While any state will do, the plan is to ship the plutonium in a diluted waste form to the underground transuranic waste dump in New Mexico known as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
This commitment is enshrined in the $600 million Settlement Agreement between the State of South Carolina and the federal government; more commonly known as “The Plutonium Settlement.”
Any failure of DOE/SRS to remove all or part of the 9.5 metric tons* of surplus plutonium (Pu) metals and powders will trigger new financial penalties that could be worth billions of dollars to South Carolina. The potential penalties involve two formulas.
First, the percentage of the 9.5 tons remaining on January 1, 2037 will be multiplied by $1.5 billion. Thus, five tons remaning could yield the state $7.5 billion, if the agreement is enforced.
Second, $1 million per day, but only up to $100 million per year, will be awarded to the State for any plutonium not removed after January 1, 2037; and for each year thereafter.
However, the loophole is that the agreement cannot be enforced until 2042 if DOE/SRS has removed more than half, or 4.75 MT, of surplus Pu by 2037.
The surplus Pu is currently being converted to a more stable waste form via a process called “dilute and dispose.” Plans to increase production through the development of a second glovebox processing line remain as tentative as the funding that is required—in this case upwards of $880 million.
As reported in Surplus Plutonium Disposition Timeline, in April 2024, DOE officials could not answer whether it will meet the 2037 deadline, telling the South Carolina Nuclear Advisory Council that “we will have to get back to you.”
Even when the current rate of processing is coupled with a scheduled, but tentative, increase in processing, DOE/SRS could still end up seven or more years behind schedule.
High Level Radioactive “Liquid Waste” Commitments.
From Liquid Waste Program: Risk Reduction and Waste Removal Update.
The same uncertainties as the surplus plutonium program exist with the processing of the site’s vast quantity of unstable, high-level radiochemical waste—commonly and kindly referred to by the public relations euphemism “liquid waste”—into more stable waste forms.
DOE/SRS is committed, via a Federal Facilities Agreement with the the State of South Carolina, to complete the processing of the remaining 33.4 million gallons of “liquid” radiochemical waste currently stored (Figure 1 above) in massive underground storage tanks by 2037. This commitment is not legally binding and the deadline can be extended, again. No fines are triggered by a failure to meet the deadline.
While DOE presents 2037 as a hard target, it remains an estimate dependent upon both future funding and the technical and logistical difficulties associated with the waste processing.
According to a September 13, 2024, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) report, DOE’s waste processing contractor, Savannah River Mission Completion (SRMC), only has a fifty-percent confidence level in their waste processing predictive models.
This news arrived only two months after a presentation to the SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) contained a major inconsistency regarding the 2037 deadline.
During the July 29, 2024 CAB meeting, SRMC presented a powerpoint slide indicating a 2037 “end state of completing the clean-up of the high level liquid waste at SRS by 2037 (on track).” (Figure 2).
on on the radioactive liquid waste program at SRS’ F and H areas.
However, the 2037 reference was removed from the provided hard copy handouts to the CAB members and attending citizens. In the hard copy provided prior to the meeting (Figure 3)—which is also what is available in the final version of the altered presentation on the SRS CAB website— the statement “SRMC is contracted by DOE to achieve an end state of completing the clean-up of the high-level liquid waste by 2037 (on track)” was removed.
Why was this sentence censored from the final, cleared document?
According to former DOE External Affairs Director Amy Boyette, all SRS CAB presentations must be cleared not only by DOE officials, but by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). In this case the original powerpoint presentation was left unmodified while the final document matched the OMB’s cleansing.
Savannah River Site Watch Executive Director Tom Clements, who has followed the issue for decades and who spotted the discrepancy, describes the omission as a sign that the federal government is not financially committed to the 2037 date:
“It turns out that OMB was right to raise a flag about the suspect 2037 high-level waste tank closure date, which I haven’t trusted since SRS started pushing that date. SRS tank-closure dates always get pushed into the future and costs always go up, which make contractors happy but prolong envionmental risks. With NNSA having more control at SRS, I’m worried we might see cleanup programs cut back, with money transferred to the program to make plutonium pits for uneeded new nuclear warheads. Such a step to reduce the cost of the environmental liability at SRS would undermine the public’s national environmental security and must be opposed.”
Footnote
* According to DOE, in 2019 there were 11.5 metric tons of plutonium at SRS (Figure 4), meaning that up to 2.0 metric tons (MT) will still remain in storage even if the plutonium settlement goal is reached. Whereas SRS has in the past stored up to 1.0 MT of nonsurplus weapons plutonium, that exact amount is unknown today.
From K-Area Pu Down Blending Overview and Update, presented to SRS CAB in July 2023.
The subsequent presentation was titled Downblend Operations Improvement Initiative .
(click to enlarge).
Previous articles pertaining to surplus plutonium and “liquid waste.”
Offsite Insights 2022-1 discusses the dilute and dispose program and the rate of plutonium waste processing.
Feds Propose 27 More Tons of Plutonium at SRS details the latest environmental impact statement (EIS) involving the future of plutonium within nuclear weapon components known as “pits.”
“Appalling and Abysmal” describes the Record of the Decision for the latest EIS.
Surplus Plutonium Disposition: “We will have to get back to you” chronicles the April 2024 SC Nuclear Advisory Council meeting and provides and estimate of the future rate of surplus plutonium processing to a diluted waste form.
The DOE-DHEC-EPA Radioactive Waste Public Relations Collaboration details both the status of the Federal Facility Agreement and the difficulties with hydrogen during waste stabilization.