Released : January 21 2009

There is a proposal on the table from the Bush administration called the Global Nuclear Energy Project (GNEP) which is presently making its way through the public process to gain approval for reprocessing nuclear waste. Reprocessing is achieved by separating uranium and plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel, and is being championed as a solution to the still unresolved problem of how to best dispose of our country’s overflow of nuclear waste.

In their zeal to push this initiative through and gain public confidence for revitalizing a long-standing ban on reprocessing of nuclear waste, the Department of Energy has come up with a moniker to deceive the public about the dangers of reprocessing, calling it innocuously—recycling. In reality, the separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel is dangerous, extremely expensive, poses proliferation concerns, creates more waste and would further contaminate the air we breathe, and the water we drink.

Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free has participated in the public process, and also in specially convened stakeholder groups to learn more about the GNEP. We have given the DOE our input which strongly advises against a program that would reinstate reprocessing, and among other things revive the proliferation concerns it poses. Presently there are 11 sites around the country which are being considered for siting a reprocessing plant and fast reactor to carry out the mission of the GNEP. If this project does land at INL, the site would become the de facto storage site for highly radioactive nuclear waste for not only this country, but from around the world.

Due to the extensive public interest and concern with the GNEP, the DOE has extended the deadline for public comment to March 16, 2009. KYNF will post its comments on this project to our website upon submission. To learn more about the GNEP from the Union of Concerned Scientists go to: http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_risk/nuclear_proliferation_and_terrorism/nuclear-reprocessing.html

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