Dept. of Energy Proposal on Civilian Nuclear Energy R&D and Isotope Production

The Department of Energy is now accepting public comment on a “Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Accomplishing Expanded Civilian Nuclear Energy Research and Development and Isotope Production Missions in the United States, Including the Role of the Fast Flux Test Facility.” The deadline for comments is September 18, 2000.

During the last two weeks DOE has held seven public hearings to receive comments regarding this environmental impact statement on enhancing the department’s nuclear infrastructure capabilities. The last of these hearings was held in the Washington, D.C. area on Wednesday afternoon. The other hearings were in Tennessee, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Over 1,000 people spoke at these hearings.

The Department of Energy is charged with ensuring the availability of isotopes for medical, industrial and research applications. DOE has supplied isotopes for many years, although it now finds its infrastructure “diminished” following the shutdown of Brookhaven’s High Flux Beam Reactor and Oak Ridge’s Cyclotron Facility. Several advisory panels have expressed concern about a dependable supply of isotopes over the longer term. An Expert Panel convened by the department recently recommended that: “the U.S. government build this [needed] capability around a reactor, an accelerator, or a combination of both technologies as long as isotopes for clinical and research applications can be supplied reliability, with diversity in adequate quantity and quality.” In addition to medical applications, isotopes are used to power NASA space missions, nucleonic instrumentation, irradiation and radiation processing, and radioactive tracers. DOE is now determining how to best respond to this need.

The Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement is one step in a multi-layer decision process that will result in a final decision by late December. Other factors being considered include stakeholder input, cost, nuclear nonproliferation impacts, policy, and program objectives and responsibilities. DOE is soliciting public comment on the Impact Statement which considers the below alternatives. DOE states that it “has no preferred alternative at this time.”

No action alternative - maintain the status quo
Restart the Fast Flux Test Facility [in Richland, Washington]
Use only existing operational facilities
Construct new accelerator(s)
Construct new research reactor
Deactivate the Fast Flux Test Reactor, no new missions

A summary of the Environmental Impact Statement, as well as the entire document, can be viewed at http://nuclear.gov

DOE is accepting comments as follows:

E-mail: Nuclear.Infrastructure-PEIS@hq.doe.gov
Toll-free fax: 1-877-562-4592
Toll-free phone: 1-877-562-4593
U.S. mail: Colette E. Brown, NE-50; Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology; U.S. Department of Energy; 19901 Germantown Road; Germantown, MD 20874

Comments must be received, or postmarked, by September 18. A department official at Wednesday’s meeting added that DOE will do its very best to consider comments received after that deadline, although he could not guarantee this would occur.