[ RadSafe ] U.S. proposes global plan to encourage nuclear energy

[Rogers Brent]

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Brent Rogers
Manager Radiation Operations Unit
NSW Environment Protection Authority
Department of Environment and Conservation
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WASHINGTON FILE 
U.S. Department of State, Office of International Information Programs  
08 February 2006
United States Proposes Global Plan To Encourage Nuclear Energy
Seeks partnerships with other countries to recycle spent nuclear fuel  

Washington - The U.S. Energy Department has proposed a broad global energy
partnership to promote nuclear energy as a clean and safe source of
electricity and develop advanced nuclear technologies to prevent spent
nuclear fuel from being used to produce nuclear weapons. 
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell announced the Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership (GNEP) as part of the President Bush's Advanced Energy
Initiative at a February 6 media briefing. 
Sell said a central goal of the partnership would be to develop and
demonstrate a process to recycle spent nuclear fuel in a way that does not
separate plutonium. Such a process, Sell said, would result in more-stable
nuclear waste with lower radiotoxicity than waste currently produced by
reactors. The change would greatly reduce concerns about nuclear-weapons
proliferation, he said. Spent nuclear fuel containing plutonium could be
useable as weapons material, according to Sell.
The GNEP will seek involvement by countries that have invested in nuclear
power - initially the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Japan, and
later perhaps, India.
The administration's budget request proposes $250 million for GNEP in the
fiscal year that begins in October, more than double the amount allocated
for similar nuclear-related initiatives the current fiscal year. Sell said
GNEP's budget would increase "dramatically" in the next three years.
The deputy secretary outlined other initiatives GNEP will take up, including
an international system for nuclear-fuel leasing. He said the idea is to
provide "commercially attractive incentives" for a country to buy a reactor,
lease nuclear fuel and then send it back for recycling and waste disposal.
Such a system would bring the benefits of nuclear power to an economy, yet
keep a country from investing in its own fuel cycle, Sell said. He said this
too would hinder proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Environmental and energy-supply issues were behind administration support
for new nuclear power plants in the United States, Sell said. The
administration's budget allocates money to foster the application and
licensing of new nuclear power plants, after a 30-year hiatus from such
projects. Administration plans could result in a new nuclear power plant in
operation by 2014.
A transcript http://www.energy.gov/news/3171.htm of Sell's briefing is
available on the U.S. Department of Energy's web site. 
For additional information U.S. policy, see Energy Policy
http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/global_issues/energy_policy.html.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)  

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