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New Safety Measures Ordered for Planned U.S. MOX Facility
The U.S Energy Department has ordered increased safety standards for a planned facility that will convert weapon-grade plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for civilian nuclear power plants, Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, May 15). The department has ordered contractor Duke Cogema Stone & Webster, which will build the MOX fuel facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, to ensure that radiation protection standards can be met as close as several hundred feet away. Duke Cogema had previously proposed that the strict radiation standards be set at the border of the site, about five miles away from the plant, according to Energy Daily. A department spokesman has said that the change is not expected to have any “significant impacts” on the plan to build the MOX facility, which still needs U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval. Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists, disagreed with that assessment. “The plant will have to be redesigned from top to bottom to put into place the additional safety measures that will be needed,” he said in a statement (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, Nov. 17).
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