The US Department of Energy's 2015 budget has cut out financing for the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF), a MOX production plant in Savannah (South Carolina), which will be placed on cold standby. Construction started in 2007 to convert about 34 tonnes of weapons-usable plutonium into mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, as part of bilateral agreements signed by the United States and Russia. The project is led by Shaw Areva MOX services, which planned to commission the plant in 2016. Cost escalated from about US$4.9bn to at least US$7.7bn (2012 estimation), while budget for the project progressively sunk, with only US$320m requested for the facility in the 2014 budget.
The DoE's US$27.9bn budget request includes US$11.7bn for the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is in charge of the US plutonium disposition programme, including US$8.3bn for weapons activities appropriation, including US$2.7bn for stockpile modernisation. The DOE also plans to invest US$863m for the Office of Nuclear Energy, for ongoing research and development in advanced reactor and fuel cycle technologies as well as the DoE's small modular reactor (SMR) licensing technical support program, for which US$97m is set aside.