[ad_1]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration announced this week the signing of a contract for the project to convert plutonium from the bombs of the Cold War to power, which would cost tens of billions of dollars after the defeat of his supporters.
CB & I group Areva MOX Services LLC, a consortium comprising the French group Orano, formerly Areva, has been building the mixed oxide (MOX) project at the Savannah River site in South Carolina since 2007.
But the US National Nuclear Security Administration informed her in a letter of October 10 that the project was over. "This notice terminates the contract in its entirety and takes effect immediately," says the letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.
The decision comes a day after the US Court of Appeals for the fourth circuit suspended the injunction issued by a lower court of the closure plan of the DOE plant.
MOX services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
South Carolina politicians, including Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, defended the MOX plant, claiming it was 70 percent complete, would help keep the plutonium safe from militants and create up to 40 percent of the total. to 600 direct jobs.
In May, the DOE told the Senate and House of Representatives committees that MOX, a kind of specialized nuclear recycling facility that was never built in the United States, would cost about $ 48 billion more than 7.6 billion already spent.
Instead of completing the MOX, the Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, wants to mix the 34 tonnes of lethal plutonium – enough to make about 8,000 nuclear weapons – with an inert substance and bury it underground in the New Mexico Waste Insulation Pilot Plant (WIPP).
Burying plutonium would cost nearly $ 20 billion over the next two decades and create 400 jobs in Savannah River, DOE said.
The Department of the Environment said the Savannah River site could be used for the manufacture of new plutonium pits, or triggers, of nuclear weapons. But there has been no final decision on this plan and the Governor of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, has complained that he will not create jobs for many years.
Opponents of MOX praised the closure. "Taxpayers can now rest more easily so that their money is not thrown into a black hole called MOX," said Tom Clements of the Savannah River Site Watch.
An NNSA spokeswoman said the agency will work with MOX Services to reduce "short-term impacts" on site workers resulting from the project's shutdown.
Reporting by Timothy Gardner, edited by Rosalba O & # 39; Brien
Source link
