Tue Aug 17, 2010 12:00pm GMT
Aug 17 (Reuters) - Although no U.S. company now reuses its nuclear
waste, the country has a long-running history with the technology.
Following are timeline highlights of the U.S. inquiry into reprocessing
and events that framed it.
1946: The Atomic Energy Act forms the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and
gives the agency title to plutonium and uranium-235, the kind commonly
used to produce nuclear energy.
1953: President Dwight Eisenhower proposes "Atoms for Peace" program
that reorients nuclear research from building weapons to electricity
generation, setting the ground for U.S. civil nuclear energy
development.
1956: Chairman of the AEC announces a program encouraging the private
sector to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
1957: The National Academy of Sciences concludes that the best means of
nuclear waste disposal is in rock deep underground.
1960: Westinghouse develops the first fully commercial pressurized water
reactor, the kind commonly used today.
1963: The AEC-sponsored reactor begins reprocessing used nuclear fuel in
Idaho Falls.
1966: The AEC issues a commercial reprocessing permit for a plant near
Buffalo, N.Y. The facility reprocessed spent fuel from the federal
defense weapons program but never commercial spent fuel. The plant shut
down in 1972 for upgrades to meet stricter regulations, closing
permanently in 1976 as it determined those standards couldn't be met.
1967: The AEC permits General Electric Co (GE.N: Quote) to build a
reprocessing plant in Morris, Illinois. The construction stopped in 1972
and GE got a license to store its irradiated fuel.
1970: Allied-General Nuclear Services company starts building a
commercial reprocessing plant in Barnwell, S.C. The company halted
construction in 1981, unable to finish without federal funding.
1974: The AEC splits into two agencies, one responsible for research and
development and another, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), overseeing
nuclear plant licensing.
1976: Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote) applies for a license to build a
reprocessing plant but receives no final response.
President Gerald Ford issues a policy statement, steering the nuclear
energy industry away from reprocessing because of worries that plutonium
would be misused for proliferation.
1977: President Jimmy Carter echoes Ford's warning and indefinitely
defers commercial recycling of plutonium, which is part of the spent
nuclear fuel.
1978: The Department of Energy starts in Nevada studying Yucca
Mountain's potential to be the first long-term geological repository for
American nuclear waste.
1979: A reactor failure leads to the largest accident in the history of
the U.S. commercial nuclear industry at the Three Mile Island Nuclear
Generating Station in Pennsylvania.
1981: President Ronald Reagan lifts Carter's ban on commercial
reprocessing.
1982: U.S. Congress passes the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, outlining the
plan to establish a permanent underground repository for radioactive
waste by mid-1990s.
1987: Congress amends the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to designate Yucca
Mountain as the only spot out of several suggested by the DOE to be
explored for the nation's nuclear waste site.
1992: President George H.W. Bush prohibits Long Island Power Authority
from working with the French firm Cogema to reprocess irradiated reactor
core.
1993: President Bill Clinton discourages the nuclear industry from
reprocessing plutonium, and thus spent nuclear fuel as well, in a policy
statement.
1996: The National Academy of Sciences declares nuclear fuel
reprocessing impractical and too costly for the country.
2001: President George W. Bush in his national energy policy calls on
the U.S. companies to develop reprocessing technologies.
2002: President Bush signs a House resolution to progress on building a
national nuclear waste storage facility.
2006: The DOE announces it will start developing spent nuclear fuel
recycling technology UREX and inquires whether domestic and
international industry would be interested in building a recycling
facility.
2007: The National Research Council finds "no economic justification" in
developing nuclear reprocessing facilities before the technology is
finalized and reports that pursuit of the program on the commercial
scale would be impossible without large DOE investments.
2009: President Barack Obama ends the environmental review that was to
set the ground for future commercialization of nuclear reprocessing in
the United States. DOE proposes to eliminate all funding and close Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste site, awaiting to hear the final NRC decision.
(Reporting by Alina Selyukh; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
