TMS Public and Governmental Affairs Resource Center

FROM THE FEDERATION OF MATERIALS SOCIETIES: In a review of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), the National Research Council (NRC) is highly critical of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), and makes recommendations for redirecting other programs.

The GNEP issue has provoked a war of words with the administration, stating unequivocally that "the GNEP program should not go forward and that it should be replaced by a less aggressive research program. Domestic waste management, security, and fuel supply needs are not adequate to justify commercial-scale reprocessing facilities, and there is no economic justification to proceed." This conclusion is echoed in Congressional reports issued this past summer. The House Appropriations Committee stated that "The Committee supports continued research on advanced fuel cycles, including the development of technologies for recycling spent nuclear fuel. However, the Committee does not support the Department's rushed, poorly-defined, expansive, and expensive GNEP proposal. . . . Further research is required before the U.S. should commit the magnitude of funding proposed under the GNEP initiative." Saying that DOE appears to have decided on a specific recycling method to be approved in 2008, the Senate Appropriations Committee "directs the Department to support a broader technology research and development program that better defines the technical requirements, validates the proliferation resistance and demonstrates the commercial feasibility of various recycling technologies." The administration, in a statement by DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon, took issue with the NRC report, saying that "the report errantly assumes that DOE has pre-selected the separations technologies to be deployed and the scale of the facilities to be built. . . . Any near-term closing of the nuclear fuel cycle with commercial-scale facilities will likely use separations technology that is similar to commercially proven processes—but does not separate pure plutonium—with recycle in current generation reactors." Both Assistant Secretary Spurgeon and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman emphasized that the United States has taken a leadership role with 16 partner nations through GNEP.

The administration found much to like in the NRC report, including the recommendation that the Nuclear Power 2010 program be given the highest priority. Assistant Secretary Spurgeon noted that this program, designed to support the near-term deployment of new nuclear plants, has contributed to 18 commercial entities announcing plans to submit license applications to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct 32 new nuclear plants. Likewise, DOE applauded the NRC support for the Next Generation Nuclear Plant and Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative and its calls for enhancing design flexibility, developing needed technologies, and improving hydrogen production performance.

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