The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has released an environmental impact statement, or EIS, for a program that seeks to implement the dilute and dispose strategy to ensure the safe and secure disposal of up to 34 metric tons of plutonium surplus to the country’s defense requirements.
The EIS for the Surplus Plutonium Disposition Program — also known as SPDP — meets NNSA’s obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act, DOE said Friday.
The plutonium surplus was previously meant for producing mixed oxide fuel, but the department dropped the MOX project in 2018.
Under the dilute and dispose strategy, also called “plutonium downblending,” pit and non-pit plutonium would be converted to oxide and would require the use of existing and new capabilities at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant facility and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Pantex Plant in Texas.
The agency issued the draft EIS for public comment on Dec. 16, 2022, and held in January 2023 a virtual public hearing and three in-person hearings to help inform the final statement.
NNSA will publish a record of decision for SPDP after Feb. 20, 2024.