US MOX Facility Receives 10-Year Construction Licence Extension

Posted by NucNet on 17 November 2014 in NucNet

Uranium & Fuel

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a 10-year extension of the construction authorisation for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River site in South Carolina.

CB&I Areva Mox Services, formerly known as Shaw Areva Mox Services, filed a request in May 2014 with the NRC to extend its current construction authorisation, which expires on 30 March 2015, to 30 March 2025.

The extension was needed, the NRC the said in a statement, because of lower than requested annual funding from Congress and delays in the delivery of components and key construction activities. The MOX fuel fabrication facility is a major component of the US programme to dispose of surplus plutonium taken from nuclear weapons by mixing it with uranium and burning it as fuel in commercial nuclear reactors.

Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers): Settlement Reached In Shaw Areva US MOX Fuel Facility Case (News in Brief No. 153, 26 November 2009)