South Carolina is THE battleground state for Energy Solutions and the Federal government's GNEP plans. ES has every intention to win the bid to operate the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, conveniently located right next door to its Barnwell site and also right next door to what they hope will be the crowning achievement of GNEP, a facility to reprocess all of the spent nuclear fuel rods in this country and all the foreign countries that are a part of GNEP. Their ultimate goal is to turn SC into a national repository for the nation's commercial spent nuclear fuel. The intended site, Yucca Mountain is likely to never open because the people and perhaps most importantly, the politicians of Nevada have stood up and said no thanks. It is very important to note that the proposed reprocessing plant may exist only on paper before SC can start receiving the nation's spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. House of Representatives, stated in regards to GNEP, that "the first step of any site's willingness to host such a reprocessing facility is its willingness to receive into interim storage spent fuel in dry casks…GNEP (which) will not be ready to begin large scale recycling of commercial spent fuel until the end of the next decade…Such delays are acceptable only if accompanied by interim storage beginning THIS DECADE." Why the big hurry to send the nation's spent fuel to Yucca Mountain or a de facto Yucca? Because no one is going to invest in the GNEP dream of 24 new US reactors, all but one planned for the South East, and an untold number of foreign reactors, unless the federal government "solves" the waste problem.

Some people are probably wondering why Energy Solutions is fighting so hard to change the Barnwell Atlantic compact, when in the scheme of nuclear things, Barnwell is admittedly small potatoes. The compact, enacted in 2000, will close the Barnwell low level radioactive dump in 7/2008, to all states except SC, Conn., and NJ. I believe that they want to break the resistance up front with the Barnwell skirmish. It is not for Barnwell alone that they are wooing the public with their TV commercials, newspaper ads and web site and strong arming the legislature, the Governors Nuclear Advisory Council and the local governments of Aiken/Barnwell with their 10 well heeled lobbyists and their slick packets of misinformation. They are gearing up for the big potatoes of a DOE contract and a nuclear reprocessing plant.

On yesterday's tour of Barnwell, they didn't answer any of my question. For example, I asked why Utah, with its much lower water table, will only takes class A low level radioactive waste and why SC with a much higher water table takes A,B and C. The answer was because that is they way they were designed. The real answer is that Envirocare, a former incarnation of Energy Solutions, spent $4 million dollars to fight an initiative in Utah to ban B and C waste. In the end the people won, but that doesn't mean the fight is over in Utah. What it does mean is that like Nevada, winning in Utah is not so easy, so the vultures have descended on SC, which has a very well documented reputation of rolling over for the nuclear industry.

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