by Mary Olson of NIRS

Mary Olson of Nuclear Information Resource Service will speak about the new nuclear plan being promoted by Bush and the National Laboratories, known as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP).

When: May 22, 6:30 pm

Where: Conference Room of Richland County Main Library

The attached article by Dr. Frank von Hippel of Princeton University gives an overview of the new nuclear plan being promoted by President Bush and now the National Laboratories as well, known as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). If any nuclear waste is reprocessed, it will be the tax payers picking up the tabSince this article is not available on the web, Dr. von Hippel provided it to concerned associates. Unfortunately the article does not give the full scope of challenges we face at Yucca Mountain. More information is available at: http://www.nirs.org/mononline/nm643.pdf.

GNEP represents a formidable sea change in US nuclear polices – forsaking the once-through nuclear fuel policy in favor of a return to reprocessing of nuclear fuel, which was banned by Ford and Carter and found to be unprofitable by the industry itself.ⁱ If any nuclear waste is reprocessed, it will be the tax payers picking up the tab – which appears to be part of a dialogue between Cheney’s plan to revive the moribund nuclear power industry and the credit agencies of Wall Street – still needed as players if new reactors are to be built.

It has been more than thirty years since a new nuclear reactor was ordered and not subsequently cancelled. Cheney’s task force on energy authored an energy policy actⁱⁱ that was signed into law in 2005 awarding billions of dollars in direct tax subsidy, tax credits, guaranteed loans and other inducements to sponsor a new generation of (partially) publicly funded, but commercially owned nuclear power reactors in the US.

Nonetheless a major Wall Street credit analyst, Standard and Poors responded to the legislation stating that nuclear power is “a risky business practice” and suggested that it would require “progress” in traditional problem areas, such as long-term nuclear waste disposition for Wall Street to jump into new reactor investments. A month later Congress responded with a plan to send the waste, currently stored on corporate reactor sites, to a central federal site for reprocessing. The original plan was to hold a “contest” for several sites to compete to “win” the waste, however national news reports in January named Savannah River Site in South Carolina as the site as early as January 2006.ⁱⁱⁱ In March 2006 the Environmental News Service confirmed that the Department of Energy had sent orders to the Savannah River site near Aiken to proceed with plans to develop a nuclear waste reprocessing center.^iv

The amount of radioactivity in the nation’s irradiated nuclear fuel is on the order of 14,000 times greater than the amount of radioactivity currently in the Barnwell dumpUnfortunately many people in South Carolina are under the misapprehension that since there is already a large amount of nuclear waste and contamination in South Carolina already from the Cold War nuclear weapons production, and from the dumping of so-called “low-level” radioactive waste in the Chem Nuclear site called Barnwell that GNEP and reprocessing of nuclear fuel will be nothing new. Unfortunately full disclosure is not being given: The amount of radioactivity in the nation’s irradiated nuclear fuel is on the order of 14,000 times greater than the amount of radioactivity currently in the Barnwell dump…not including any waste from the extended licenses that are being granted, or any new reactors…or any waste from outside the United States – but that is precisely the plan: a GLOBAL nuclear energy partnership whereby, amazingly the United States – South Carolina – would take nuclear waste from all over the world, make plutonium fuel, and supply it to the partners.

South Carolina – would take nuclear waste from all over the world, make plutonium fuel, and supply it to the partners.Can this plan be stopped? Yes. It is not cost effective and it violates all common sense about nuclear security – and it depends on massive federal spending while the budget deficits balloon. However it depends upon at least some people in South Carolina sending a clear signal that we do not want the nation’s high-level waste. A small comfort is the fact that interim storage at the reactor sites is both more secure than transporting this material, and more likely to ensure a long-term program is eventually arrived at, since many congressional districts remain involved. If all the high-level waste is moved to Savannah River Site, it will be the burden of that one congressional district, and South Carolina alone.

i Ford banned reprocessing as soon as India demonstrated that plutonium separated from nuclear fuel is effective as nuclear weapons materials with their nuclear test in 1973. Carter expanded the ban.

ii See: http://energy.senate.gov/public/_files/ConferenceReport0.pdf

iii Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Nuclear Energy Plan Would Use Spent Fuel, January 26, 2006 and John J, Fialka, The Wall Street Journal, Bush Seeks to Jump Start Nuclear Power, January 26, 2006.

iv For a basic discussion of reprocessing see: http://www.nirs.org/factsheets/reprocessisnotsolution.pdf

Mary Olson is Southeast Regional Director of Nuclear Information Resource Service and a CPRC board member.