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The Charleston District Technical Services Division is partnering with the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to provide construction oversight for a facility at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Aiken, SC.
The NNSA has requested assistance from the Charleston District to provide two engineers for construction oversight at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) for several years. Currently, Gary McAlister the Resident Engineer at the on-site SRS field office is handling that duty.
The estimated cost of the MFFF, which includes both design and construction costs, is $4.5 billion.
The facility will remove impurities from surplus weapon-grade plutonium, remove impurities and mix it with uranium oxide to form Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) pellets for commercial reactor fuel assemblies.
In 1995, the National Academy of Sciences recommended that both the United States and Russia perform a long-term disposition of excess stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.
Both countries agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons grade plutonium—enough for thousands of nuclear weapons—by irradiating it as MOX fuel in commercial nuclear reactors. The MFFF is just one of the facilities required to complete this process.
In 1999, the Department of Energy signed contracts with Shaw AREVA MOX Services, LLC, for design, construction and operation of the MFFF.
Preliminary numbers for construction of the 600,000-square-foot facility include more than 170,000 cubic yards of concrete; 35,000 tons of reinforcing steel; 23,000 instruments; 1000 tons of heating and air conditioning vents; 500,000 feet of conduit; 47,000 feet of cable tray; 3 million feet of power and control cable; and 80 miles of piping. It will be a hardened structure similar to a nuclear reactor containment building with state of the art security and intrusion systems.
The design of this facility is based on AREVA's two facilities in France. The French have used MOX technology for almost two decades and currently supply over 30 reactors worldwide.
The MFFF will be licensed for 20 years and operations are expected to last well into the 2020s. The MOX fuel assemblies will be shipped to the McGuire Nuclear Station near Charlotte, NC and the Catawba Nuclear Station near Rock Hill, SC. Each station operates two reactors.
The Corps is also working towards a partnership with NNSA to supply construction management services for the Pit Disassembly and Control Facility (PDCF). Nuclear weapons pits will be disassembled and converted into plutonium oxide at the PDCF.
The estimated cost of the PDCF, which includes both design and construction costs, is approximately $2.5 billion.
Current plans for the Corps to have a role in the construction of a Waste Solidification Building, which will capture waste streams from the PDCF and MFFF for safe packaging for transport and disposal, have not been determined.
