There is extensive - and quite critical - language in the FY 2007 report
of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee
regarding the Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)
initiative. Chairman David Hobson (R-OH), Ranking Minority Member Peter
Visclosky (D-IN), and their colleagues are quite supportive of nuclear
energy, and favor the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, but fault
the Department of Energy's approach to GNEP and the Yucca Mountain nuclear
waste repository.
The GNEP initiative has attracted considerable attention, with authorization
and appropriations hearings in the House and Senate, and public appearances
by senior DOE officials. While many Members are supportive of nuclear
energy, there is much less consensus that GNEP is the correct approach.
Moving forward with this proposal will require significant funding,
and House appropriators are less than completely happy about GNEP, with
Hobson saying he has "serious policy, technical, and financial
reservations" about it. DOE officials have estimated that GNEP
could cost $3 - $6 billion in the first five years. The Administration
requested $250 million for GNEP for FY 2007; House appropriators cut
this amount in H.R. 5427 by $96 million. Senate appropriators are likely
to take a different course since Pete Domenici (R-NM), a strong supporter
of nuclear energy, has said he will fully fund GNEP, and look for additional
money for the initiative.
Selections from House Report 109-474 follow outlining the subcommittee's
views. In the interest of space, not all language is included on topics
such as University Reactor Infrastructure and Education Assistance,
and Nuclear Energy Research and Development (including an extensive
discussion of the UREX+ process demonstration.) See http://thomas.loc.gov/,
and request House Committee report 109-174 in "Committee Reports"
to view this language.
"The Department requests $250,000,000 for a major new initiative
called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). This initiative
would address the challenges of spent fuel disposal, nuclear nonproliferation,
and growth in nuclear energy through the application of advanced technologies
to recycle spent nuclear fuel. The Committee strongly endorses the concept
of recycling spent nuclear fuel. Continuing the once-through fuel cycle
not only would waste much of the energy content of spent fuel and leave
an environmental legacy of radioactive materials, some of them useable
in nuclear weapons, but will require the construction of eight more
Yucca-sized repositories by the end of the century (assuming nuclear
energy continues to supply twenty percent of the nation's electricity
needs).
"However, the Committee has serious reservations about GNEP as
proposed by the Administration. The overriding concern is simply that
the Department of Energy has failed to provide sufficient detailed information
to enable Congress to understand fully all aspects of this initiative,
including the cost, schedule, technology development plan, and waste
streams from GNEP. GNEP in some ways addresses Congressional direction
with respect to Integrated Spent Fuel Recycling given in the Statement
of Managers accompanying the Conference Report on Energy and Water Appropriations
for Fiscal Year 2006, but the GNEP proposal differs in several significant
aspects from what the conferees directed last year, and the GNEP proposal
falls short in a number of critical areas:
"Integration of Recycling Facilities - Congress provided funding
in fiscal year 2006 for DOE to begin the competitive selection of sites
willing to host integrated spent fuel recycling facilities. Integration
is critical to address nonproliferation and security concerns, keeping
sensitive materials and sensitive facilities within a secure perimeter
and minimizing offsite transportation of special nuclear materials.
Unfortunately, the Department has ignored this key concept of integration.
The Request for Expressions of Interest for GNEP (solicitation DE-RP07-06ID14760)
only mentions three facilities: one for the separation of usable elements
from waste products in spent fuel, one for the conversion of transuranics,
and an advanced fuel cycle facility. There is no mention of the requirement
that these facilities be integrated or co-located at a single site,
nor (as is detailed below) is there any mention of the need for interim
storage as part of an integrated recycling complex.
"Interim Storage - In the Committee's view, any such integrated
spent fuel recycling facility must be capable of accumulating sufficient
volumes of spent fuel to provide efficient operation of the facility.
A first test of any site's willingness to host such a facility is its
willingness to receive into interim storage spent fuel in dry casks
that provide safe storage of spent fuel for 50 to 100 years or longer.
In this Committee's view, if any site refuses to provide interim storage
as needed to support the operation of an integrated recycling facility,
at whatever scale, then that site should be eliminated from all further
consideration under GNEP. As noted above, the Department failed to include
any requirement for interim storage in its Request for Expressions of
Interest for hosting GNEP facilities. Further, the Department failed
to include any language regarding interim storage in its legislative
proposal that was submitted to Congress on April 5, 2006.
"Resolution of the spent fuel problem cannot wait for the many
years required for the GNEP to proceed through comprehensive planning,
engineering demonstration, NRC licensing of the recycling plant, any
new reactor types such as fast reactors, and each new recycled fuel
type, and ultimate operations. The credibility of the Administration's
support for the future of the nuclear power industry rests on its resolution
of the issues associated with taking custody of spent fuel and opening
a permanent geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste (Yucca
Mountain), as required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. GNEP will not
be ready to begin large-scale recycling of commercial spent fuel until
the end of the next decade, and the Yucca Mountain repository will not
open until roughly the same time. Such delays are acceptable only if
accompanied by interim storage beginning this decade.
"Inclusion of Fast Reactors - When Congress provided funding in
fiscal year 2006 for Integrated Spent Fuel Recycling, Congress understood
integrated recycling to involve four steps: an advanced separation technology
such as UREX+ that would not yield separated plutonium, fabrication
of new mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for use in commercial light water power
reactors thereby recycling any plutonium containing product of UREX+,
vitrification of waste products, and interim storage of spent fuel to
support the recycling process. GNEP envisions a very different process,
using fast burner reactors to destroy more completely the plutonium
and other actinides in the spent fuel. While such an approach may be
desirable from a technical perspective, the inclusion of fast reactors
adds significant cost, time, and risk to the recycling effort. The Department
has failed to provide any comparison of the relative costs and benefits
of the two approaches to convince Congress, and the public, that UREX+
coupled with fast reactors is the best approach to recycling spent fuel.
"Linkage to Yucca Mountain - Unfortunately, it appears that the
Department has decided to put its emphasis on GNEP and put Yucca Mountain
on the back burner. That choice is unacceptable to the Committee. The
Yucca Mountain repository is essential regardless of whether GNEP is
successful or the United States retains a policy of a once-through nuclear
fuel cycle, and the Committee fully supports proceeding to construct
and operate this repository. The latest schedule from the Department
of Energy has a license application for construction being filed in
fiscal year 2008, construction start three to four years later and disposal
of commercial spent fuel sometime near the end of the next decade. This
is a seven-year delay from the schedule just two years ago. During the
delay, the Department has estimated that it will incur added costs of
$500 million per year in liabilities to the nuclear utilities for the
Department's failure to begin accepting commercial spent fuel. As noted
above, this delay is acceptable only if accompanied by centralized interim
storage in the near term. Furthermore, the Department has estimated
that it will include an additional $500 million per year in costs to
protect and manage its own wastes that are destined to be placed in
Yucca Mountain. The Committee is reluctant to embark on any new initiative
that has the potential to produce significant chemical and radioactive
waste streams.
"Inadequate Information on Waste Streams and Life Cycle Costs
- The cost estimates for construction and commissioning of the Hanford
Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) have gone from $4.3 billion to over $11
billion in just three years, and are still not yet well established.
This plant is designed to process the high-level radioactive waste derived
from past reprocessing activities. The Department has failed to produce
a complete accounting of the estimated volumes, composition, and disposition
of the waste streams that will be involved in GNEP. The Department has
also failed to produce even the most rudimentary estimate of the life-cycle
costs of GNEP. Before the Department can expect the Congress to fund
a major new initiative, the Department should provide Congress with
a complete and credible estimate of the life-cycle costs of the program.
"Future of Nuclear Energy - At present, 103 civilian light-water
nuclear reactors generate twenty percent of the nation's electricity.
The generation process produces no greenhouse gases, is carefully regulated
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and rate payers pay into the Nuclear
Waste Fund for the permanent disposal of spent reactor fuel. However,
the current fleet of reactors are generally one-third to half way through
their expected operating lifetimes. To retain this component of our
domestic energy supply, even at the twenty percent level, the United
States will have to reach a consensus supporting the construction of
dozens of new nuclear reactors. Delays in opening the Yucca Mountain
repository cast a shadow over the future of nuclear energy, as it is
doubtful that the NRC will be able to license new reactors without a
clear disposal path for the spent fuel those reactors will generate.
Unfortunately, the timeline for commercial-scale implementation of GNEP
is too far off in the future to assist with licensing new reactors in
the next decade. The Department has chosen, unwisely in this Committee's
view, to seek legislation that would eliminate the availability of disposal
space in a permanent repository as a consideration for NRC in licensing
new reactors. Aggressive development of the initial Yucca Mountain repository,
coupled with either expansion of Yucca's capacity or development of
additional repositories, would be a responsible solution to the waste
confidence question. The provision of centralized interim storage, so
that the Department could begin moving spent fuel away from commercial
reactor sites, would also be a responsible alternative. Attempting to
legislate away the waste confidence problem is not.
"The concept of recycling spent nuclear fuel has real promise,
with benefits both domestically and internationally. However, the Committee
recognizes that implementation of advanced recycling on any significant
scale is at least a decade or more in the future. The Department has
yet to submit a compelling and complete justification for the $250,000,000
request for GNEP in fiscal year 2007. Therefore, the Committee supports
a more modest effort on GNEP, continued emphasis on Yucca Mountain,
and renewed emphasis on the provision of centralized interim storage.
Specific guidance on this issue is provided in the sections of the report
dealing with the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative and with Nuclear Waste
Disposal."
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