Union of Concerned Scientists Letter to DOE

Dear Mr. Schwartz,

The administration should cancel the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program and the corresponding Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) process. Instead, it should take proactive steps to discourage nuclear waste reprocessing worldwide. GNEP will do nothing to solve the issue of nuclear waste and will undermine U.S. and global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons material.

Reprocessing makes it easier for terrorists to get bomb-making material. GNEP’s official nonproliferation impact statement states that the process “greatly reduces barriers to theft, misuse, or further processing, even without separation of pure plutonium…”

In addition, reprocessing does not solve the waste problem. GNEP’s draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Assessment states that the volume of all nuclear wastes that would be generated would be many times greater than the volume of the original spent fuel. We do not know where that waste would go.

It makes no sense for the United States to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a program that carries substantial security, economic, and environmental risks and promises virtually no benefits. The GNEP program should immediately be canceled and the United States should resume its efforts to oppose reprocessing technology worldwide.