WP,pg1: Nuclear Energy Plan Would Use Spent Fuel (break w/ U.S. policy) [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

Nuclear Energy Plan Would Use Spent Fuel
By Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, January 26, 2006; Page A01


The Bush administration is preparing a plan to expand civilian nuclear energy at home and abroad while taking spent fuel from foreign countries and reprocessing it, in a break with decades of U.S. policy, according to U.S. and foreign officials briefed on the initiative.

The United States has adamantly opposed reprocessing spent fuel from civilian reactors since the 1970s because it would produce material that could be used in nuclear weapons. But the Bush program, envisioned as a multi-decade effort dubbed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, would invest research money to develop technologies intended to avoid any such risk, the officials said.

The program has been the subject of intense debate within the administration, and although a consensus has been reached about the direction, a senior official said it will not be ready for Bush to announce in his State of the Union address Tuesday. Even the discussion has stirred concerns among nuclear specialists and some members of Congress who consider it an expensive venture that relies on unproven concepts and could increase the danger of proliferation.

The notion of accepting other countries' spent fuel at a time when the United States has had trouble disposing of its own nuclear waste could also prove highly controversial.

But a small initial investment of money has been programmed into the administration's federal budget plan to be sent to Capitol Hill in two weeks. Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said yesterday that he expects the White House to send accompanying legislation in February....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/25/AR2006012502229.html?sub=AR