MIXED OXIDE FUEL FABRICATION FACILITY: U.S. NRC REGULATIONS AND CONSTRUCTION SAFETY ASSESSMENT

With the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia began dismantling nuclear weapons, which resulted in surplus weapons-usable plutonium. In September 2000, the United States and Russia signed an agreement committing each country to dispose of 34 metric tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium. One of the challenges facing both nations is the development of strategies to dispose of this surplus material. In the U.S., the Department of Energy (DOE) plans to use the surplus U.S. plutonium as fuel in commercial power reactors, thereby rendering it inaccessible and unattractive for future weapons use. The U.S. surplus plutonium would be converted to uranium-plutonium mixed oxide (MOX) reactor fuel at a MOX fuel fabrication facility. DOE selected Duke Cogema Stone & Webster (DCS) to design, construct and operate the facility at its Savannah River Site (SRS), near Aiken, South Carolina. Pursuant to the Defense Authorization Act of 1999, the construction and operation of the MOX fuel fabrication facility will be subject to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) requirements. DCS submitted an environmental report to NRC in December 2000 and an application to construct a MOX fuel fabrication facility to NRC in February 2001. DCS plans to submit a supplemental application and a supplemental environmental report to NRC by October 2002 to reflect changes to the facility necessitated by changes to the U.S. program for surplus plutonium disposition announced by DOE in January 2002. NRC is conducting a safety review of the facility and issued a draft Safety Evaluation Report (SER) in April 2002 that addresses the information that was submitted in the February 2001 request. NRC will issue a revised draft SER and a final SER, that will describe the safety conclusions reached by the NRC staff, after the supplemental application is submitted. NRC staff also intends to issue an Environmental Impact Statement after it completes its review of the supplemental environmental report. Construction of the facility is dependent on a favorable approval by the NRC in its final SER and final EIS. NRC regulations allow for NRC approval of construction and operation separately. This paper reviews NRC regulations applicable to a MOX fuel fabrication facility and summarizes the conclusions in the NRC draft SER for construction of the MOX facility.