US to continue support for near-term new nuclear build: Bodman

Washington (Platts)--14Feb2006

US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Monday said that while the Bush
administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership eventually could trigger a
wave of nuclear plant construction worldwide, he assured an industry audience
that the department would continue to support industry efforts to build new
nuclear plants in the US in the nearer term.

     The GNEP, which was unveiled last week in the administration's fiscal
year 2007 budget, is designed, among other things, to expand US use of nuclear
power, demonstrate more "proliferation resistant" reprocessing, minimize
nuclear waste, develop "advanced burner" fast reactors, and establish reliable
fuel supply and take-back services. The administration has requested $250-mil
in 2007 for the program, which is expected to cost billions of dollars and
take decades to complete.

     "GNEP will not interfere with our plans to see several new plants built
in the US," Bodman told industry officials at a Platts conference in
Washington. Through the plan, Bodman said, the country could avoid putting
un-recycled nuclear waste in the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository in Nevada. 

     "The nuclear waste we dispose of still retains about 90% of its energy, a
huge amount of our nuclear waste that we do in fact waste and would waste if
we dispose of it in a repository," Bodman said.

     Bodman asked why the country would "bury" such waste "in a mountain, if
there is a better way to deal with," saying "we do in fact think there is."

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