The US needs to build a current-generation nuclear reprocessing plant to
handle spent fuel because the Department of Energy's current plan is "a
50-year program, and we can't wait 50 years for what we need," Senator Pete
Domenici said Wednesday.

Domenici, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, made the comment at a hearing of the panel on DOE's Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership.

GNEP "will take way too long" and has elements that are too
controversial, Domenici, who represents New Mexico, said. The US needs to move
ahead with reprocessing because the proposed Yucca Mountain spent fuel
repository in Nevada has "less and less credibility," he said.

But Peter Orszag, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, said
at the hearing that reprocessing is more expensive than direct disposal of
spent fuel "across a wide range of plausible assumptions."

--Daniel Horner, daniel_horner@platts.com