[ RadSafe ] News Announcement: Senate Appropriations Language on Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing

[John Jacobus]

-----Original Message-----
From: fyi at aip.org [mailto:fyi at aip.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2005 11:36 AM
To: Jacobus, John (NIH/OD/ORS)
Subject: FYI #102: Senate Language on Nuclear Fuel
Reprocessing

FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science
Policy News
Number 102: June 29, 2005

Senate Appropriations Language on Nuclear Fuel
Reprocessing

The approach that House and Senate appropriators have
taken in their report language regarding the
disposition of spent nuclear fuel from the nation's
utility plants differs greatly.  As previously
reported, House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman
David Hobson (R-OH) and his colleagues put notably
exacting language in their FY 2006 Energy and Water
Development Appropriations report about the transport
of spent fuel to centralized above ground interim
storage locations and the development of an integrated
spent fuel reprocessing plan (see
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/082.html.)  The Senate's
counterpart report, written by Appropriations
Subcommittee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) does not
include language similar to the House report.  This
report language is below (to read all of report
109-084, see  http://thomas.loc.gov/ under "Committee
Information.")

"RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT:

"Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative- The Committee
recommendation includes $85,000,000, an increase of
$15,000,000 over the budget request. The initiative
should continue to focus on development of fuel cycle
technologies that minimize the toxicity of final waste
products resulting from spent fuel while recovering
energy remaining in spent fuel; minimize proliferation
concerns and environmental impacts of the fuel cycle
and minimize the number of reprocessing steps so as to
minimize system costs. The initiative shall assist the
Secretary with development of alternative technology
options. 

"Based on the success learned at the Savannah River
Technology Center of the Uranium Extraction
Technology, known as UREX in 2002, the Committee
expects the Department to expand its efforts to
advance research of aqueous spent fuel treatment and
to begin the engineering scale demonstrations. The
Committee recommends an additional $10,000,000 to
accelerate the design activities associated with a
proposed Engineering Scale Demonstration [ESD]. The
ESD will provide the United States with the capability
to conduct research and development into advanced
spent fuel separations and transmutation from
laboratory scale through engineering scale prior to
commercial deployment. The budget request provided
funds for pre-conceptual design activities only. This
funding will allow completion of the conceptual design
in fiscal year 2006 and enable preengineering design
to commence in fiscal year 2007. In addition to
studying light water reactors, the Committee expects
the Department to evaluate fast reactors that are
capable of destroying larger amounts of long-lived
radioactive material.

"To provide confidence in the technology options
proposed, the project will use Department of Energy
national laboratory and university expertise to
perform research and development of advanced
technologies for spent fuel treatment and
transmutation of plutonium, higher actinides and
long-lived fission products. Advanced nuclear material
recycle and safeguard technologies,
proliferation-resistant nuclear fuels, and
transmutation systems shall be investigated. Both
reactor-based and a combination of reactor and
accelerator-based transmutation approaches may be
included as part of the research and systems analysis.

"The project shall use international and university
collaborations to provide cost effective use of
research funding. The Committee has provided an
additional $6,000,000 to the Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative for the UNLV [University of Nevada, Las
Vegas] Research Foundation and directs the Department
to enter into a 5-year cooperative agreement to study
deep burn-up of nuclear fuel and other fuel cycle
research to eliminate the need for multiple spent
nuclear fuel repositories, to eliminate weapons
useable material from disposed spent fuel, and to
maintain forever potential radiological releases from
a repository below currently legislated limits.

"The Committee is aware of the excellent recent
progress in the jointly funded U.S./Russian program to
develop the GT-MHR [Gas Turbine - Modular Helium
Reactor]. The recent completion of the particle fuel
fabrication and testing facilities in Russia along
with continued progress in the area of the power
conversion system indicates the continued support of
the Russians for the development of this option. The
Committee also notes that the GT-MHR is a leading Gen
IV reactor type. Within the Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative, $3,000,000 is provided for the Idaho
Accelerator Center and the Department is directed to
enter into a 5-year cooperative agreement with IAC.
The Department is provided $7,000,000 to develop a
Nuclear Energy Materials Test Station at Los Alamos
Neutron Science Center to advance the technology
needed to support the materials and fuel experiments
required by the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative and for
the exploration of Generation IV fast neutron spectrum
systems. Since the closure of the Fast Flux Test
Facility, resulting in no domestic fast neutron source
for conducting actinide transmutation, the Materials
Test Station will advance the development of improved
fuel cycles that can reduce the quantity, heat
generation and toxicity of spent nuclear fuel. The
Committee recommendation includes $1,000,000 for the
Center for Materials Reliability and $750,000 for
nuclear transportation hazard research at the
University of Nevada-Reno."

The House has passed its version of the FY 2006
funding bill.  The Senate bill awaits action on the
floor, after which differences in the bills will be
resolved in a conference committee.

###############
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi at aip.org    http://www.aip.org/gov
(301) 209-3094
##END##########



+++++++++++++++++++
"Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea and never shrinks back to its original proportion." -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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