Released : January 22 2009

KYNF has attended two meetings with the NGNP project lead and engineers from DOE, and is in the process of taking a position on this project. Immediate concerns to KYNF are the waste produced and unresolved disposition of it, proliferation concerns, and the enormous costs.

The Department of Energy is looking to develop what they term the next generation, or “Gen-IV” nuclear reactor designed to meet the growing energy demands and mitigation of carbon release. What they have in mind is to develop a light-water reactor that can broaden the markets for energy production and distribution by processing heat, hydrogen and electricity.

The NGNP was authorized by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and in it the Idaho National Lab (INL) was sited as the place where the first prototype would be built. The DOE would like to build a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) that will be a first of its kind, and test it out for eventual commercial use.

KYNF has attended two meetings with the NGNP project lead and engineers from DOE, and is in the process of taking a position on this project. Immediate concerns to KYNF are the waste produced and unresolved disposition of it, proliferation concerns, and the enormous costs. KYNF will continue to analyze the merits of this initiative and register our comments with the DOE. KYNF agrees that there needs to be more possible energy solutions on the table but they must be clearly vetted and considered to be sure that we are not substituting the creation of immediate energy solutions for the sake of future unresolved legacies.

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