Graniteville — Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said it would take more than $1 billion a year to properly fund the nation's plutonium disposition program, which includes the Savannah River Site's MOX project.
Moniz delivered the news Tuesday during an interview with the Aiken Standard at Aiken Technical College. The funding level is one he doesn't believe Congress is willing to appropriate.
"When it comes to the total funding - not just for the fabrication plant, but for all of the other activities ... you're talking north of $1 billion a year," Moniz said. "So we gotta see if Congress is willing to appropriate over a billion dollars a year for decades to get it done. That's the truth."
A recent, congressionally mandated study conducted by Aerospace Corp. concluded that the entire cost of the program could total $51 billion in life cycle costs. That cradle-to-grave figure includes the $4.4 billion that already has been spent, the completion of the main MOX facility, other construction, labor and related costs for the entire life span and a two-decade planned operation of the project.
Moniz said that in a policy sense, the best way forward is the MOX method because of the money already spent and the agreement with Russia for each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium.
However, he said sequestration cuts have been a large part of the delays and cost overruns. As a result, Aerospace concluded that the $51 billion is based on whether MOX construction was to be funded at $500 million per year, closer to the level the Department of Energy has said it would take to make significant progress.
If MOX was funded at $375 million per year - $30 million less than its current funding - Aerospace reported it would cost about $110 billion to complete.
If sequestration ends, then Moniz said the cost projections would obviously go down. But funding MOX at $345 million - the current and requested funding level for next fiscal year - is much too low to make any significant progress, he said.
"If you fund it at $345 million a year, it will never finish. It will just never finish," Moniz said.
The MOX project employs 1,700 workers, and the construction of the main building falls under the Savannah River Site's work with the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous branch of the Department of Energy.
Read more on MOX and the other topics discussed during the Moniz interview in Thursday's Aiken Standard.
Derrek Asberry is the SRS beat reporter with the Aiken Standard. He joined the paper in June 2013. He is originally from Vidalia, Ga., and a graduate of Georgia Southern University. Follow him on Twitter @DerrekAsberry.