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CAUSE - PART 4 of 6: The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)
The purpose of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is to encourage the growth of nuclear power worldwide. “It was a Bush initiative that Canada joined in December 2007 without any debate in parliament,” explains Schacherl.
An article printed in The Toronto Star on November 29, 2007 called on Canada to join a controversial nuclear partnership. The plan proposes re-using nuclear waste, a practice effectively banned in Canada and the U.S. since the 1970s for security reasons. It was announced in this article that Canada would be a part of the GNEP. Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada insisted that "no matter which side of the nuclear debate you fall on – pro or anti – everyone should be able to agree this is something which deserves public scrutiny."
Schacherl adds, “One of the principles of the GNEP partnership is that those countries who sell uranium will agree to take back the spent fuel. The United States, who initiated the partnership, benefits the most as it has a huge nuclear waste problem. Yucca Mountain, where long-term storage was once planned, has now been shelved for a number of reasons including community opposition. Countries such as Canada clearly don’t benefit as they will take
U.S. hails Emirates nuclear deal as model | Reuters
The United States formally signed a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, hailing it as a "new bargain" that could help prevent the spread of dangerous atomic technology.
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"This is a new bargain for the Middle East region and the United States welcomes and applauds the UAE's decision," Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary for arms control, said at the signing ceremony.
The pact, which President Barack Obama approved in May and sent to Congress for a 90-day review period, is potentially worth billions of dollars to General Electric Co (GE.N) and Westinghouse Electric, a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp (6502.T).
GNEP issues Joint Statement, vowing peaceful, safe use of nuclear energy _English_Xinhua
The third Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Executive Committee meeting was held here on Friday, on which its member countries stressed to support a peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy.
Zhang Guobao, director of the National Administration of Energy, presided over the meeting. In an opening address, Zhang said nuclear energy that is clear, safe and greenhouse gas emission-free, would play a crucial role in the world energy system.
At the meeting, the Executive Committee reconfirmed that safety, security and non-proliferation were fundamental prerequisites for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. All partnership activities should be conducted in a manner to enhance them.
According to the GNEP Joint Statement issued at the meeting, the partners will further strengthen cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other relevant international organizations.
Deal to build nuclear facility is dead - Augusta Chronicle
The U.S. Energy Department made official Monday its plan to scrap a Bush administration initiative that could have brought a major nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to South Carolina.
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Economic developers, however, say the cancellation of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership - published in Monday's Federal Register - doesn't mean Barnwell County and Savannah River Site won't win a similar venture in the future.
"At this point, GNEP, as a concept, is dead, but the issue of what to do with this material isn't," said Danny Black, the president of Southern Carolina Alliance, a regional economic development consortium based in Barnwell.
DOE officially announces it won't push SRS reprocessing plan 062909 - The Augusta Chronicle
The U.S. Energy Department made official today its plan to scrap a Bush administration initiative that could have brought a major nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to South Carolina.
Economic developers, however, say the cancellation of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership—published in today’s Federal Register— doesn’t mean Barnwell County and Savannah River Site won’t win a similar venture in the future.
“At this point, GNEP, as a concept, is dead, but the issue of what do do with this material isn’t,” said Danny Black, president of the Barnwell-based SouthernCarolina Alliance, a regional economic development consortium.
The GNEP program, unveiled in 2006, was a broad plan to reprocess spent commercial nuclear fuel to maximize its efficiency, reduce waste volume and prevent its exploitation for nuclear weapons.
The Birth of an International Nuclear Fuel Bank? - Scitizen
In a speech on 5 April 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic, US President Barack Obama said that his Administration will: negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia this year; immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; seek a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in nuclear weapons; and seek to build “a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation” (1).
Chicago Page One Examiner: Nuclear waste reprocessing plan melting down? CHICAGO; MORRIS; NAPERVILLE; AURORA
The Obama administration may be melting down a program that would have shipped deadly radioactive wastes from around the world to a reprocessing facility eyed for Chicago’s Southwest suburbs.
“The program has been terminated,” Department of Energy spokesman Brian Quirke told Chicago Page One Examiner last week about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
That happened in late March, when GNEP was chopped from the new budget, he said.
The controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership [GNEP] was a pet project of the DOE during the Bush years. It called for transporting radioactive waste from the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors and from 25 foreign countries signed on as “GNEP Partners.”
The DOE for two years was mulling a contract with Argonne National Labs that had tentative plans to site a nuclear reprocessing plant near Morris. Highly radioactive weapons-useable plutonium from nuclear reactors across the nation and around the world would have been shipped by truck, rail, and barge for research, development, reprocessing, and long-term storage.
NEI: DOE 'restructuring' fuel-cycle approach, ambassador says
The cancellation of US funding for some programmes of GNEP does not signal the demise of GNEP, or the US's support for its work. Schulte mentioned that there are two international working groups in GNEP. The first addresses infrastructure development and seeks to help states begin implementing the guidance conveyed in the IAEA Milestones document. The second working group addresses reliable nuclear fuel services as a viable alternative to the acquisition of sensitive fuel cycle technologies. The US government's own Ed McGinnis is the chair of the GNEP parnters and observers steering group.
Nuclear Engineering International: DOE kills GNEP
A US Department of Energy spokeswoman has confirmed that the US domestic component of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership has been cancelled.
"The Department has already decided not to continue the domestic GNEP program of the last administration," said DOE deputy press secretary Jen Stutsman in a statement on April 15. "The long-term fuel cycle research and development program will continue but not the near-term deployment of recycling facilities or fast reactors. The international component of GNEP is under interagency review."
DOE to scrap SRS initiative - The Augusta Chronicle
The U.S. Energy Department will scrap a Bush administration initiative that could have brought billions of dollars in new spending—and a lot more nuclear materials— to South Carolina.
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, unveiled in 2006, was a plan to reprocess spent commercial nuclear fuel to maximize its efficiency, reduce waste volume and prevent its exploitation for nuclear weapons. Two of the 11 sites proposed for such reprocessing centers are in South Carolina.
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: Proliferation Concerns and Implications
Abstract posted below. Download the full article online (PDF, 16 pages).
Abstract: Since the dawn of the atomic age, the United States has sought to encourage the use of nuclear energy while minimizing the proliferation risks associated with it. The latest U.S. initiative that sets out to accomplish this is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which, in its current form, potentially includes the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies around the globe. This article examines the concerns surrounding the proliferation of these technologies and surveys their history both domestically and internationally. In identifying these concerns, the author argues that GNEP needs to be considered in the context of the Atoms for Peace program; that it erodes the successful thirty-year U.S. position against reprocessing; and that it allows for the spread of technologies that are not proliferation-resistant.
Opinion: Editorials & Letters | "Nuclear waste coming soon to an interstate near you" | The Register-Guard
When decommissioned in 1987, Hanford held two-thirds of the nation’s high-level radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks. These have been leaking into the groundwater and the river despite a massively funded, 19-year cleanup effort.
The Nov. 17 hearing presented a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on the energy department’s earlier proposal to develop a “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership” presented in May, 2007 at the same locations. The DOE snuck in its mandated hearings far from our population centers, with short and little notice. For good reason.
Under the GNEP plan, nuclear fuel would be produced in the U.S. and other advanced nuclear nations through a reprocessing technology that is yet to be developed. The cost is undisclosed but substantial. Nuclear fuel would be provided to developing countries for their nuclear energy development. In return, we would receive their waste for further reprocessing — an international recycling system that would keep the big boys in control of weapons-grade nuclear material production. The DOE claims the reprocessing site isn’t yet selected, but the inside word is that it’s Hanford.
Energy to Die For - Pasco and Hood River GNEP EIS hearings
If the Department of Energy has its way, highly radioactive waste will soon be coming from all over the world, traveling right through our highways and railways here in the Pacific Northwest, past our schools and shopping centers to end up at Hanford Washington, already one of the worlds most highly polluted sites. There is so much about this plan that is objectionable, misleading, untruthful, not to mention deadly, that I hardly know what to say. For starters, the hearings were scheduled in such a way to discourage vocal opposition from citizens. You aren't supposed to know this is happening. The most important message here is that YOU CAN help stop this. Simply use one of the three methods below to voice your opposition, on a Government website, by snail mail, or by FAX. Tell them what you think even if it is just a simple "I disapprove of GNEP".
View the videos below that were taken at the Pasco Washington and Hood River hearings on November 17th and 18th of 2008. These videos are only some of the testimonies that were given and are posted to help inform the many who could not make it. They may also be very useful in formulating your own statement.
Please help stop this by submitting your opinion.
Department of Energy - GNEP Nations Hold Infrastructure Development Working Group Meeting
Representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) participated this week in the third Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Infrastructure Development Working Group (IDWG), underscoring the Department’s commitment to ensuring that global expansion of civilian nuclear power is done safely and securely, while reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation and responsibly managing waste. The IDWG, held December 8th and 9th in Vienna, Austria, includes over 70 participants from 22 countries working to support the sharing of educational resources, the promotion of technical educational opportunities and the establishment of new programs by which nuclear energy issues can be properly supported by trained, educated, and qualified personnel.
DOE - DOE Extends Deadline for Draft GNEP PEIS Comment Period
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a notification in the Federal Register today that it is extending the comment period on the Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) by 90 days. The public comment period will now end on March 16, 2009.
Aiken Standard: Nuclear expansion opinions presented
At a public hearing Thursday, the Department of Energy heard various opinions regarding how its proposed expansion of nuclear energy would benefit or harm the Southeast United States. However, they heard more just making a sales pitch for the CSRA as a site for new reprocessing reactors.
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and its Programatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) were debated and examined by the more than 30 invested individuals who spoke out on the pros and cons of increasing the country's nuclear energy infrastructure.
The PEIS specifically does not name a list of potential sites.
Portsmouth Daily Times > Environmentalists speak out at GNEP meetings
The possibility of the Atomic Plant site at Piketon becoming a storage and reprocessing site for spent nuclear fuel rods has brought opposition from environmental groups and a hearing by the U.S. Department of Energy for public comments.
Piketon is on the short list, if not at the top, of a list of facilities around the country hoping to land the site, said Ivan Oelrich, Ph.D, vice president of the Strategic Security Program for the Federation of American Scientists out of Washington.
Oelrich spoke at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Vern Riffe Career Technology Center at Piketon. The DOE held its hearing at 7 p.m. in the same building, but in a different meeting room.
Oelrich was funded by his own group and was working with the environmental groups SONG -- Southern Ohio Neighbors Group -- and the Ohio Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is imperative Augusta Chronicle
The Nov. 25 column by Robert Alvarez is full of assertions that require clarification and/or rebuttal.
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First of all, reprocessing of used nuclear fuel is an issue because about 95 percent of the energy value in the original fuel remains in the "spent" fuel , so it begs the question of "shouldn't that valuable resource be recovered?" Secondly, the concept of fast reactors coupled with thermal reactors and reprocessing results in minimum waste and sustainable nuclear fuel supplies for hundreds of years.
Nuke program's EIS blasted - Oak Ridge, TN - The Oak Ridger
Critics had some harsh words for the U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday regarding a draft environmental impact statement prepared for a proposed program meant to safely, securely and sustainably expand the use of nuclear energy.
DOE has prepared the statement for what is known as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, and officials had a public hearing on the program at the New Hope Center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. First proposed by the Bush Administration, GNEP would expand the use of nuclear power as an energy source, both domestically and internationally. Officials say it would also strive to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation and limit the impacts of getting rid of spent nuclear fuel.
The Portsmouth Daily Times > GNEP expert talks about waste storage
In an exclusive interview with the Portsmouth Daily Times, Andy Griffith, who is with Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), says the storage of radioactive waste is scheduled to take place at a place in Nevada called Yucca Mountain, just 80 miles from metropolitan Las Vegas, and because of its proximity to a large population, is, at best, a controversial subject.
"Currently there is a license application, and it has been accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and it's currently under review," Griffith said. "And so Yucca Mountain is moving forward. Part of the problem is that it has a statutory limit of 70,000 metric tons, and that's also by statute, by law, and if the 104 existing light water reactors continue to operate, we'll probably reach that limit in the 2010 time frame."
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