NUCLEAR
CONTROL INSTITUTE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tom Clements, NCI, 202-822-8444
Tuesday, April 11, 2000 David
Adelman, NRDC, 202-289-2371
DOE'S DECISION TO
DISPOSE OF BOMB-GRADE SPENT FUEL
HAILED AS A MAJOR
NON-PROLIFERATION VICTORY
Washington, D.C.--
The Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) today
welcomed the Department of Energy's decision to dispose of spent fuel containing
highly-enriched uranium (HEU) as waste--rather than recovering the bomb-grade material--as
a major non-proliferation accomplishment. The
policy was established in an Environmental Impact Statement being issued publicly by the
Department of Energy this week.
The Department of
Energy’s (DOE) choice of a new technology which does not reprocess the spent fuel
avoids adding to the stockpile of nuclear weapons material is a major victory for nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament, said the two organizations. "Secretary of Energy
Bill Richardson deserves congratulations for making sure that this important new policy
was actively pursued and approved," said NCI Executive Director Tom Clements. "Now he must act decisively to make sure
there is an adequate budget to implement the policy and get the job done."
DOE's new policy was
announced in the Final Environmental Impact
Statement on Spent Nuclear Fuel Management at DOE’s Savannah River Site (SRS). The document is currently arriving via mail to
stakeholders and is expected to be noticed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in
the Federal Register on Friday. Under the new
approach, foreign and domestic spent fuel containing highly-enriched uranium will be
treated at SRS with a recently developed proliferation-resistant technology called
"melt and dilute.” The process
yields low-grade uranium that is unsuitable for use in nuclear weapons but suitable for
disposal as waste. In the past, HEU had been
extracted from spent fuel in reprocessing plants at SRS.
The process also has fewer environmental impacts than reprocessing, which results
in separated HEU and a large volume of liquid radioactive waste.
Although other forms
of spent fuel covered in the EIS will be reprocessed, both NCI and NRDC view the decision
on the HEU spent fuel as an essential step in hastening the end of reprocessing in the
United States and an important example for other nations. "This decision sends a
positive non-proliferation signal internationally and is a critical step toward the
closing of reprocessing facilities at SRS," said NRDC Staff Attorney David Adelman.
"These plants were built as an integral part of fissile material production for
weapons during the Cold War, and they are no longer needed.
Long-term funding for melt-and-dilute must still be assured to keep the shutdown of
these plants on track.
“From an
environmental perspective, the people of South Carolina and Georgia should welcome this
decision by DOE, but they deserve to be presented a timetable for closure of the dirty and
dangerous reprocessing facilities, “ said NCI’s Clements. Of the 68 tonnes of fuel covered in the EIS,
approximately 48 tonnes will be subjected to the melt and dilute treatment. Thus, 60% in
mass (and 97% in
volume) of the material covered in the EIS will be treated with the new melt & dilute
technology and the remainder reprocessed.
Melt-and-dilute
involves the melting in an oven of the aluminum-clad HEU research-reactor spent fuel
assemblies, with conversion of the melted material into low-enriched (LEU) ingots, a form
unsuitable for direct use in nuclear weapons. In
order to demonstrate the new technology, HEU spent fuel is scheduled to be melted in an
oven soon to be installed in the old L-Reactor building at SRS. The full-scale treatment facility is expected to
be operational in the L-Reactor building in
FY 2008. L-Reactor was permanently closed in
the late 1980’s after decades of plutonium and tritium production for weapons.
DOE’s Savannah River Site, located
near Aiken, South Carolina, currently stores a large quantity of foreign and domestic
aluminum-clad HEU research-reactor fuel in pools and is scheduled to continue receiving
such material from numerous research reactors around the world until 2009. The United
States originally supplied the bomb-grade uranium fuel to reactors in over 30 countries
and numerous U.S. universities, but after realizing the proliferation risks of such supply
began a program to convert these reactors to LEU fuel incapable of being used for weapons.
DOE’s concerted effort to convert
research reactors to LEU, known as the Reduced Enrichment in Research and Test Reactors
(RERTR), has proved to be one of the U.S. government’s most successful
non-proliferation initiatives. Under the
RERTR program DOE agreed to accept spent HEU fuel for disposition in the U.S. in order to
reduce risks of its diversion overseas for weapons.
NCI and NRDC also praised Secretary Richardson for fulfilling a commitment made in the 1996 by one of his predecessors, Hazel O’Leary, to develop non-reprocessing technologies for management of the returning spent fuel for environmental and non-proliferation reasons. “We congratulate Secretary Richardson for honoring DOE’s earlier commitment to the American people to pursue non-reprocessing disposal options for this bomb-grade spent fuel.’ said Clements.
The two non-proliferation groups also lauded DOE’s decision as it exemplifies a long-standing U.S. non-proliferation strategy of leading by example. “As the U.S. moves to treat weapons-grade nuclear material as waste rather than as a valuable commodity to be introduced into commerce, foreign states will be encouraged to do the same,” said NCI’s Clements. The U.S. terminated commercial reprocessing of spent fuel in 1972 but has yet to present a firm timetable for closing the two remaining DOE reprocessing facilities, F- and H-Canyons, located at SRS.
#
For more information
on efforts to end commerce in highly-enriched uranium (HEU), go to the NCI web site at http://www.nci.org/heu.htm
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