Nuclear Nonproliferation

A key nonproliferation goal of the United States is to discourage the use of highly enriched uranium, a material that can be used to make nuclear bombs, in civilian nuclear programs worldwide. Research reactors are of particular concern because the major civilian use of highly enriched uranium is as fuel in these reactors. U.S. officials question the safety of spent highly enriched uranium fuel left in interim storage at reactor sites worldwide and, for security reasons, would prefer that this spent fuel be consolidated and stored permanently in the United States. Under its Off-Site Fuel Policy, the Energy Department (DOE) has since 1968 been taking back the spent fuel, reprocessing it, and storing the resulting waste at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. But DOE stopped this practice in the late 1980s, arguing that the fuels policy could not be renewed until environmental studies were done. No spent fuel of U.S. origin has been taken back since the fuels policy expired, despite warning from operators of foreign research reactors that they were facing fuel storage problems. This report provides information on (1) the effects of delays in renewing the Off-Site Fuels Policy on U.S. nonproliferation goals and programs--specifically, the reduced enrichment program, (2) DOE's efforts to renew the fuels policy, and (3) the price to be charged to the operators of foreign reactors for DOE's activities in taking back the spent fuel.

GAO found that: (1) delays in taking back spent fuel negatively affect U.S. nonproliferation goals; (2) failure to renew the fuels policy could cause some reactors to revert to HEU fuel; (3) DOE does not require U.S. research reactors to convert to LEU; (4) two foreign research reactors had their spent HEU fuel reprocessed because the United States did not take back their fuel; (5) an agreement between the United States and the European Atomic Energy Community permits reprocessing of fuels of U.S. origin; (6) DOE failure to renew its fuels policy could negatively affect the 1995 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty negotiations; (7) DOE plans to renew its fuels policy as soon as it can address the environmental impacts of transporting and storing spent fuel, storing the spent fuel in existing storage space at the Savannah River Site, building new storage units at existing DOE facilities, and charging foreign reactor operators for accepting, storing, and disposing of spent fuel in a U.S. repository; and (8) foreign research reactor operators will likely look for alternative options for their spent fuel if DOE fees are too costly.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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