[NukeNet] Panel Urges Bush to Drop Nuke Waste Plan

[Diane Farsetta]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/29/ 
AR2007102901237.html

Panel Urges Bush to Drop Nuke Waste Plan

By H. JOSEF HEBERT
The Associated Press
Monday, October 29, 2007; 8:52 PM

WASHINGTON -- A panel of the National Academy of Sciences urged  
President Bush on Monday to abandon an ambitious plan to resume  
nuclear waste reprocessing that is the heart of the administration's  
push to expand the civilian use of nuclear power.

A 17-member panel of the Academy's National Research Council said the  
proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, has not been  
adequately peer reviewed and is banking on reprocessing technology  
that hasn't been proven, or isn't expected to be ready in the time  
the administration envisions.
	
The report, released Monday, said GNEP research is taking money and  
focus away from other nuclear research programs and efforts to speed  
the construction of new nuclear power plants.

"All committee members agree that the GNEP program should not go  
forward and that it should be replaced by a less aggressive research  
program," said the panel. It said if the administration proceeds as  
planned there will be "significant technical and financial risks."

Bush announced the global nuclear initiative in early 2006 and has  
repeatedly touted it as key to U.S. efforts to deal with a growing  
amount of highly radioactive reactor waste and still allow a large  
expansion of commercial nuclear power. Internationally, the plan  
envisions a small number of countries including the United States and  
Russia supplying other nations with reactor fuel and reprocessing  
their used fuel.

Only last week, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman cited the importance  
of the GNEP program. He said in a speech it "represents the future of  
global nuclear power cooperation" and will "allow for a greater  
global reliance on civilian nuclear power to produce the electricity  
needed" while safeguarding against proliferation.

The Academy panel said it did not address the pros and cons of the  
international aspects of the GNEP program, but expressed deep  
reservations about its ability to address the U.S. waste disposal issue.

Dennis Spurgeon, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for  
nuclear energy, said a positive element of the science panel's review  
was that most of the members accepted the need to "close the fuel  
cycle" and continued research into nuclear fuel reprocessing at some  
level.

Spurgeon said committee conclusions represented "a misconception of  
the (GNEP) program" and that the department "fully recognizes the  
complexity and time needed. ... We are talking about something that  
will, in fact, take decades to develop."

The GNEP program has been criticized by nuclear nonproliferation  
activists and has received a chilly reception in Congress, which has  
refused to provide the short-term funding the Energy Department has  
requested. The administration wanted nearly $395 million for the  
program this year, but is getting $167 million.

Although nuclear fuel reprocessing continues in Europe and Japan, the  
United States abandoned it in the 1970s because of concerns that the  
stream of pure plutonium that is created poses a nuclear  
proliferation risk. But the GNEP program envisions adopting a  
different reprocessing method that its advocates argue would not  
create pure plutonium.

But the Academy panel of scientists said that "significant technical  
problems remain to be solved" in development of the new approach,  
known as the "UREX" process.

But Spurgeon criticized the scientists' report for focusing too much  
on the UREX process, which he acknowledged will take some time to  
develop. The department, in fact, is pursuing with industry other  
more near-term reprocessing technologies that would "close the fuel  
cycle ... something we need to get on with and get on with soon," he  
said.

The long-term GNEP program's life-cycle cost has been put by the  
Energy Department at between $20 billion to $40 billion over several  
decades and includes construction of reprocessing plants and next- 
generation "fast-burn" reactors to burn some of the processed waste.

The Energy Department maintains that the program in the long run will  
reduce the cost of commercial reactor waste disposal and remove the  
need for additional underground waste repositories beyond the  
proposed Yucca Mountain waste dump in Nevada.

The science panel disagreed.

"In view of the technical challenges involved the committee believes  
that the opposite will be true," it said of the claimed cost savings.

The National Research Council scientists, who were asked by Congress  
to examine the Energy Department's nuclear research priorities, said  
that the GNEP program is taking away funding for a program, called  
"Nuclear Power 2010" to help promote the construction of new  
commercial nuclear power plants.

The Energy Department should put greater emphasis on that program to  
help identify new sites for nuclear power plants, promote design and  
engineering work for a new generation of light water reactors and  
help the NRC move promptly to license new power reactors, said the  
science panel.