Washington (Platts)--9May2007

The US Department of Energy plans to award up to $60 million over two
years toward the cost of conceptual designs for a nuclear fuel recycling
center and an advanced recycling reactor that would be key components of the
Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Deputy Energy
Secretary Clay Sell said Wednesday. 

     Addressing the US Energy Association's annual meeting in Washington, Sell
said DOE expects to make three to six awards later this year, assuming
Congress provides the department with sufficient funding for GNEP in fiscal
2008. 

     The department is counting on taking $15 million from its
fiscal 2007 budget to make the awards and $45 million from the budget it has
proposed for the fiscal year starting on October 1. The deadline for proposals
from industry is June 22.

     "This will be critical to sharpen the decisions the department will need
to make regarding what the technology challenges will be," he said of the
proposed projects. 

     GNEP, which President Bush announced in 2006, calls for global expansion
of civilian nuclear energy through recycling spent fuel. The initiative has
drawn some questions in Congress because of the billions of dollars that
likely would be spent on it in coming years. 

     Sell told USEA that recycling spent fuel, and thereby reducing the
amounts requiring geological storage, is critical to building a number of new
nuclear plants in the country. 

     "I'm fairly confident we can get the next six [nuclear] plants built in
the United States, but we need 60," he said. "To get that build-out, we need
to deal with waste."