ChimpCo to reprocess foreign spent fuel (crosspost from LBN)

[jpak]

Thought this might stimulate more discussion in E&E....

Nuclear Energy Plan Would Use Spent Fuel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/25/AR2006012502229_pf.html

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.

<snip>

Rather than just provide nuclear fuel to other countries that want to have their own reactors, Bodman suggested, the United States would also take back the fuel once it has been spent. "In the longer term, we see fuel-cycle states offering cradle-to-grave fuel-cycle services, leasing fuel for power reactors and then taking it back for reprocessing and ultimate disposition."

<snip>

Officials briefed on the Bush plan said $250 million -- less than requested by the Energy Department -- will be included in the fiscal 2007 budget in a down payment on what they expect to be billions of dollars of spending. Among other things, it would pay for a pilot plant, possibly at the department's Savannah River facility in South Carolina, to test chemical reprocessing. If the program goes forward as planned, the domestic nuclear industry stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars.

<more>

[jpak]

1. more

Bush Plans $250M for Nuclear Waste Project

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2006/jan/26/012601599.html

<snip>

The initial $250 million is expected to go to stepped up research and initial work on a reprocessing facility, probably at the Savannah River nuclear complex in South Carolina, according to private and government sources familiar with the discussions.

<snip>

Bodman said the administration remained committed to completing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada. But experts say it will not be able to hold all of the country's reactor waste if nuclear energy expands with new reactors.

"Reprocessing could help avoid or delay the need for a second repository," Marvin Fertel, a senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying group, told a congressional hearing last March.

But Fertel emphasized that the nuclear industry views fuel reprocessing as a technology that is still decades away from being economical - and won't be as long as fresh uranium is plentiful and relatively cheap.

<more>

note: the Nuclear Energy Institute is a major GOP contributor and had extensive discussions with Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force...who'd a thunk their clients might benefit from this????

[jpak]

2. Westinghouse is the top contractor at Savannah River Site

and oversees the military reprocessing and MOX fuel facilities there.

Westinghouse was also a major participant in Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force and a major GOP contributor as well.

And they say that Crime Don't Pay....

[Dead_Parrot]

3. contractor... Westinghouse... contributor...

Who'd have thunk? :shrug:

If it's any consolation, Westinghouse has been in the business for decades, with no major problems (that I know of).

[bananas]

4. link to original thread

there's already quite a few comments there.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2066412