Nuclear experts push for waste re-use plan

The heads of the nation's energy laboratories made a case Tuesday for finding a way to re-use nuclear-reactor fuel, saying it could extend the life of the Yucca Mountain, Nev., repository through the end of the century and help prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.

 

It is a massive undertaking that will take support from Congress, the energy industry and the best minds in science, said Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell.

The heads of the nine national labs briefed congressional staff on the administration's proposal, called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, then met with reporters and later spoke with Utah Sen. Bob Bennett's staff.

"We must start now so that 10 years from now the United States has options that it can now only dream of," said Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M. "This initiative provides options for our energy future."

EnergySolutions, formerly known as Envirocare, has expressed its interest in hosting a nuclear-waste reprocessing plant and has been running ads on Utah TV stations promoting recycling as a solution to the nuclear-waste dilemma. It has stressed that it does not want to do such work in Utah, where it is based.

The trouble with reprocessing has been that it is costly -- many times more expensive than mining and enriching new reactor fuel -- and that current practices produce plutonium suitable for nuclear weaponry.

"This is an unworkable, wishful-thinking plan that has been attempted and abandoned in the past and is now being repackaged," said Leonor Tomero of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

The goal, said Robert Rosner, director of the Argonne National Laboratory, is "environmentally benign nuclear energy" in the coming century.

Retired Vice Admiral John Grossenbacher, director of the Idaho National Laboratory, said there is no way to know what the cost of the program will be until decisions are made on its scope.

The Bush administration has requested $250 million in next year's budget, and Domenici said he intends to include it in the Energy Department's bill.

The program is aimed at providing foreign nations with working, small-scale reactors that they can use, then return to the United States where the spent fuel can be reprocessed and re-used, with the most dangerous material extracted and buried at Yucca Mountain.

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