Leaked NNSA Report Sheds Light on Cost Estimate for MFFF Alternative

摘要

A leaked report from a nominally independent office within the National Nuclear Security Administration offers a trove of new details about the plan the agency must sell to Congress in order to start producing nuclear-warhead cores in South Carolina. On May 10, Energy Secretary Rick Perry said he would officially cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) — intended to deweaponize 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium — and convert the unfinished building into a factory capable of making 50 plutonium pits a year by 2030. Perry cited authority given to him by Congress to cancel the facility if he could prove an alternative, called dilute-anddispose, could deweaponize the plutonium for half the cost of finishing the MFFF. Perry said dilute-and-dispose would cost about $20 billion while MFFF would cost about $50 billion.