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Another U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) project undertaken by AREVA is the ongoing construction of a Mixed-Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River site near Aiken, South Carolina, in partnership with the Shaw Group.
The MOX facility supports the DOE-managed U.S. Plutonium Disposition Program, which is the most significant non proliferation program currently underway.
The facility will convert at least 34 metric tons (about 75,000 pounds) of surplus U.S. weapons grade plutonium, which helps to carry out a 2000 nonproliferation agreement between the United States and Russia. Under the agreement, the United States and Russia each committed to dispose of 34 metric tons (68 metric tons total) of surplus weapons grade plutonium - enough material for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons.
The design of the 600,000-square-foot facility is based on AREVA’s La Hague and Melox fuel treatment facilities in France.
In May 2008, Shaw AREVA MOX Services, LLC and DOE signed an agreement implementing construction of the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility. Through this agreement, valued at nearly $2.7 billion, the DOE is exercising the construction option included in the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility contract signed in 1999.
The facility will remove impurities from surplus weapon-grade plutonium and mix it with uranium oxide to fabricate MOX fuel pellets to be inserted into fuel assemblies for use in commercial nuclear power reactors.
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