NUCLEAR WASTE REPROCESSING AND S. 1271

By opening the door to nuclear reprocessing, S. 1271, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996, would overturn a key U.S. environmental and nuclear non-proliferation policy supported by Presidents of both parties.

Background: The Dangers of Reprocessing. Nuclear reactors produce "spent" (irradiated) fuel as a byproduct of their operation. "Reprocessing" is the separation of plutonium, uranium, and certain other elements from spent fuel, usually for use in nuclear power reactors or nuclear weapons.

In most cases, the key concern is plutonium, which is carcinogenic even in quantities as small as one one-millionth of a gram. Plutonium also is a nuclear explosive material. Less than 15 pounds can make a bomb powerful enough to destroy a city -- and S. 1271 contemplates reprocessing by the ton. Furthermore, reprocessing complicates waste disposition by creating additional radioactive waste streams, including liquid wastes that occupy a much greater volume than spent fuel.

Why Change A Sensible Policy? Over a decade ago, the United States abandoned commercial reprocessing because of economic and proliferation concerns. Since then the United States has adhered to a "once-through" fuel cycle. Spent fuel is stored on-site at nuclear-power reactors, without reprocessing, until it is transported to its final disposition.

Reprocessing does not eliminate the need for an effective long-term plan for spent-fuel disposition, since the highly radioactive byproducts of reprocessing also require disposition. In fact, reprocessing exacerbates the environmental problems posed by spent fuel -- leaving a more serious problem to our children and our children's children.

S. 1271: Going From Bad to Worse. A key concern of both environmentalists and non-proliferation advocates is that S. 1271 paves the way for reprocessing by establishing a centralized interim storage facility.

By consolidating the spent fuel in one place, under DOE control, the bill makes it easier to turn over the enormous spent-fuel inventory for reprocessing, either domestically or overseas, instead of requiring individual decisions by each utility. It also makes such a decision more likely, since DOE can be expected to be less sensitive to the poor economics of reprocessing than private utilities, which are answerable to shareholders, ratepayers, and state regulatory commissions. Finally, it reduces the public role in the process since an export of the spent fuel for reprocessing overseas would no longer be subject to licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission if DOE had taken title to the spent fuel prior to the export.

But if the pro-reprocessing orientation of the bill was always implicit, the version that passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on March 7 made it explicit. The Craig-Murkowski substitute introduced at the markup adds a new section (408), which says that under "emergency conditions," which could include simply running out of on-site capacity, utilities "may execute an emergency relief contract with entities qualified to provide interim storage and conditioning." While the term "conditioning" is not defined in the bill, the section refers to the "high-level waste" that may result, and the bill defines "high-level waste" as the product of reprocessing.

In addition to the proliferation and environmental problems created by Section 408, there would be financial consequences for the taxpayer. Handling separated plutonium and high-level waste -- which would return to DOE -- is likely to be much more expensive than handling spent fuel.

At the markup, Senator Bumpers offered an amendment stipulating that "nothing [in the bill] shall be deemed to provide any new authority for the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel or promote the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel." The amendment was defeated, conclusively demonstrating that the intention of S. 1271 is to open the door to reprocessing.

Reprocessing: Do We Want to Go Down That Road? Reprocessing makes even less sense today than it did 20 years ago. The United States is trying to decide what to do with all the excess plutonium from the nuclear weapons it has dismantled and how to clean up its nuclear-weapons production sites. Separating more plutonium and contaminating the environment even more would be perverse.

Daniel Horner
Nuclear Control Institute
202 822-8444

April 22, 1996

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