Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
DOE Should Reassess Its Approach to Designing and Building Spent Nuclear Fuel Recycling Facilities Gao ID: GAO-08-483 April 22, 2008The Department of Energy (DOE) proposes under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) to build facilities to begin recycling the nation's commercial spent nuclear fuel. GNEP's objectives include reducing radioactive waste disposed of in a geologic repository and mitigating the nuclear proliferation risks of existing recycling technologies. DOE originally planned a small engineering-scale demonstration of advanced recycling technologies being developed by DOE national laboratories. While DOE has not ruled out this approach, the current GNEP strategic plan favors working with industry to demonstrate the latest commercially available technology in full-scale facilities and to do so in a way that will attract industry investment. DOE has funded four industry groups to prepare proposals for full-scale facilities. DOE officials expect the Secretary of Energy to decide on an approach to GNEP by the end of 2008. GAO evaluated the extent to which DOE would address GNEP's objectives under (1) its original engineering-scale approach and (2) the accelerated approach to building full-scale facilities. GAO analyzed DOE plans and industry proposals and interviewed DOE and industry officials concerning the pros and cons of both approaches.
DOE's original approach of building engineering-scale facilities would meet GNEP's objectives if the advanced technologies on which it focused can be successfully developed and commercialized. The advanced technologies would reduce waste to a greater degree than existing technologies by recycling radioactive material that a geologic repository has limited capacity to accommodate. The advanced technologies would also mitigate proliferation risks relative to existing technologies by increasing the difficulty of theft or diversion of weapons-usable nuclear material from recycling facilities. Nonetheless, DOE's engineering-scale approach had two shortcomings. First, it lacked industry participation, potentially reducing the prospects for eventual commercialization of the technologies. In particular, the approach included some technologies that may introduce unnecessary costs and technical challenges while creating waste management challenges; industry representatives have questioned whether such technologies could be commercialized. Second, DOE's schedule called for building one of the recycling facilities (a reprocessing plant for separating reusable materials from spent nuclear fuel and fabricating recycled fuel) before conducting R&D on recycled fuel that would help determine the plant's design requirements. This schedule unnecessarily increased the risk that the spent fuel would be separated in a form that cannot be recycled. The other two facilities DOE had planned to build (an advanced reactor for using recycled fuel and an R&D facility) would allow DOE to conduct R&D that existing DOE facilities have limited capability to support. DOE's accelerated approach of building full-scale facilities would likely require using unproven evolutions of existing technologies that would reduce radioactive waste and mitigate proliferation risks to a much lesser degree than anticipated from more advanced technologies. Two of the four industry groups that have received funding under GNEP proposed evolutionary technologies for recycling spent fuel in existing reactors even though the GNEP strategic plan ruled out such technologies. While the evolutionary technologies could allow DOE to begin recycling a large amount of spent fuel sooner than under its original approach, fully meeting GNEP's waste reduction and nonproliferation objectives would require a later transition to more advanced technologies. Two other industry groups proposed technologies that would address GNEP's waste reduction and nonproliferation objectives by using technologies that are not mature enough to allow DOE to accelerate construction of full-scale recycling facilities. Under any of the proposals, DOE is unlikely to attract enough industry investment to avoid the need for a large amount of government funding for full-scale facilities. For example, the industry groups have proposed that DOE fund an advanced reactor, which DOE and industry officials expect would at least initially be more expensive than existing reactors to build and operate and thus not be commercially competitive. DOE acknowledges the limitations of its accelerated approach but cites other benefits, such as the potential to exert more immediate international influence on nonproliferation issues.
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Director: Team: Phone:GAO-08-483, Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: DOE Should Reassess Its Approach to Designing and Building Spent Nuclear Fuel Recycling Facilities
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Report to Congressional Committees:
United States Government Accountability Office:
GAO:
April 2008:
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership:
DOE Should Reassess Its Approach to Designing and Building Spent
Nuclear Fuel Recycling Facilities:
GAO-08-483:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-08-483, a report to congressional committees.
Why GAO Did This Study:
The Department of Energy (DOE) proposes under the Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP) to build facilities to begin recycling the nation‘s
commercial spent nuclear fuel. GNEP‘s objectives include reducing
radioactive waste disposed of in a geologic repository and mitigating
the nuclear proliferation risks of existing recycling technologies. DOE
originally planned a small engineering-scale demonstration of advanced
recycling technologies being developed by DOE national laboratories.
While DOE has not ruled out this approach, the current GNEP strategic
plan favors working with industry to demonstrate the latest
commercially available technology in full-scale facilities and to do so
in a way that will attract industry investment. DOE has funded four
industry groups to prepare proposals for full-scale facilities. DOE
officials expect the Secretary of Energy to decide on an approach to
GNEP by the end of 2008. GAO evaluated the extent to which DOE would
address GNEP‘s objectives under (1) its original engineering-scale
approach and (2) the accelerated approach to building full-scale
facilities. GAO analyzed DOE plans and industry proposals and
interviewed DOE and industry officials concerning the pros and cons of
both approaches.
What GAO Found:
DOE‘s original approach of building engineering-scale facilities would
meet GNEP‘s objectives if the advanced technologies on which it focused
can be successfully developed and commercialized. The advanced
technologies would reduce waste to a greater degree than existing
technologies by recycling radioactive material that a geologic
repository has limited capacity to accommodate. The advanced
technologies would also mitigate proliferation risks relative to
existing technologies by increasing the difficulty of theft or
diversion of weapons-usable nuclear material from recycling facilities.
Nonetheless, DOE‘s engineering-scale approach had two shortcomings.
First, it lacked industry participation, potentially reducing the
prospects for eventual commercialization of the technologies. In
particular, the approach included some technologies that may introduce
unnecessary costs and technical challenges while creating waste
management challenges; industry representatives have questioned whether
such technologies could be commercialized. Second, DOE‘s schedule
called for building one of the recycling facilities (a reprocessing
plant for separating reusable materials from spent nuclear fuel and
fabricating recycled fuel) before conducting R&D on recycled fuel that
would help determine the plant‘s design requirements. This schedule
unnecessarily increased the risk that the spent fuel would be separated
in a form that cannot be recycled. The other two facilities DOE had
planned to build (an advanced reactor for using recycled fuel and an
R&D facility) would allow DOE to conduct R&D that existing DOE
facilities have limited capability to support.
DOE‘s accelerated approach of building full-scale facilities would
likely require using unproven evolutions of existing technologies that
would reduce radioactive waste and mitigate proliferation risks to a
much lesser degree than anticipated from more advanced technologies.
Two of the four industry groups that have received funding under GNEP
proposed evolutionary technologies for recycling spent fuel in existing
reactors even though the GNEP strategic plan ruled out such
technologies. While the evolutionary technologies could allow DOE to
begin recycling a large amount of spent fuel sooner than under its
original approach, fully meeting GNEP‘s waste reduction and
nonproliferation objectives would require a later transition to more
advanced technologies. Two other industry groups proposed technologies
that would address GNEP‘s waste reduction and nonproliferation
objectives by using technologies that are not mature enough to allow
DOE to accelerate construction of full-scale recycling facilities.
Under any of the proposals, DOE is unlikely to attract enough industry
investment to avoid the need for a large amount of government funding
for full-scale facilities. For example, the industry groups have
proposed that DOE fund an advanced reactor, which DOE and industry
officials expect would at least initially be more expensive than
existing reactors to build and operate and thus not be commercially
competitive. DOE acknowledges the limitations of its accelerated
approach but cites other benefits, such as the potential to exert more
immediate international influence on nonproliferation issues.
What GAO Recommends:
GAO recommends that DOE reassess its preference for accelerating GNEP.
DOE stated it will continue to assess alternative approaches to GNEP.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-483]. For more
information, contact Gene Aloise at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
DOE's Original Engineering-Scale Approach Would Meet GNEP's Objectives
If Advanced Recycling Technologies Are Successfully Developed:
DOE's Accelerated Approach Would Likely Rely on Technologies That Fall
Short of Meeting GNEP's Objectives:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix II: DOE's Use of Technology Readiness Levels to Assess the
Maturity of Spent Fuel Recycling Technologies:
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Energy:
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
Table:
Table 1: Materials in Spent Nuclear Fuel and Their Potential
Disposition under GNEP:
Figures:
Figure 1: Advanced Technologies for Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel
Envisioned under GNEP:
Figure 2: Nuclear Fuel Assembly and Uranium Pellet:
Abbreviations:
DOE: Department of Energy:
GNEP: Global Nuclear Energy Partnership:
MOX: mixed oxide:
NRC: Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
R&D: research and development:
TRL: technology readiness level:
[End of section]
United States Government Accountability Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
April 22, 2008:
Congressional Committees:
The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is an administration
proposal, announced in February 2006, to encourage the expansion of
nuclear energy while addressing the burden of spent fuel disposal and
the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. According to the Department
of Energy (DOE), which is responsible for implementing GNEP, nuclear
energy is critical to meeting the growing demand for electricity, both
domestically and internationally. DOE considers nuclear energy to be
the only proven technology that can reliably generate large amounts of
electricity without air pollution or emissions of greenhouse gases.
However, the spent fuel from nuclear power plants remains radioactive
for many thousands of years and requires proper disposal to protect
public health and the environment. To date, the nation's commercial
nuclear power plants have created more than 50,000 metric tons of this
radioactive waste, which is currently stored at sites around the
country subject to oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC). Recognizing that the accumulation of spent nuclear fuel is a
national problem, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established
federal responsibility for its permanent disposal.[Footnote 1] In
particular, the act directed DOE to construct an underground geologic
repository to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level
radioactive waste.
In the quarter century since passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act,
the problem of spent fuel disposal has not been resolved, and it is
likely to grow. DOE is preparing a license application to NRC for a
nuclear waste repository at the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, but the
project is decades behind schedule.[Footnote 2] DOE's estimate of the
federal government's liability for the department's failure to begin
accepting spent nuclear fuel from existing commercial nuclear power
plants was $11 billion as of September 30, 2007. In addition, DOE
estimates that the amount of spent nuclear fuel produced by commercial
nuclear power plants will reach Yucca Mountain's statutory limit of
70,000 metric tons by about 2010.[Footnote 3] The gap between the
statutory limit on the amount of spent fuel that DOE may dispose of in
the repository and the amount produced by nuclear power plants will
increase as existing plants continue to operate and as utilities submit
license applications for new plants to meet the nation's growing
electricity demand. In relation to this problem, the Nuclear Waste
Policy Amendments Act of 1987 required the Secretary of Energy to
report to the President and Congress not later than January 1, 2010, on
the need for a second repository.[Footnote 4] The director of DOE's
Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which is responsible
for the Yucca Mountain project, has said that if current circumstances
persist, the Secretary's report will indicate the need for a second
repository.
Furthermore, the international development of nuclear energy increases
the risk, highlighted by revelations about the nuclear programs of Iran
and North Korea, that other countries might develop nuclear weapons.
The proliferation risk stems in part from the fact that two of the
technologies associated with a civil nuclear industry--spent fuel
reprocessing and uranium enrichment--can also produce weapons-usable
nuclear material. In particular, existing reprocessing technologies
chemically separate plutonium from other components of spent fuel.
Commercial reprocessing, such as is done in France, separates the
plutonium so that it can be recycled into new fuel for nuclear power
reactors. However, the separated plutonium can also be used in nuclear
weapons. Because of proliferation concerns, the United States has
pursued a policy since the 1970s of discouraging the reprocessing of
commercial spent nuclear fuel internationally.
DOE proposes under GNEP to reprocess and recycle the nation's
commercial spent nuclear fuel in a manner that is consistent with the
policy of discouraging the spread of reprocessing internationally and
that addresses the following objectives:
* Reduce nuclear waste. A cornerstone of GNEP is the proposal to
develop advanced technologies for recycling not only plutonium but also
other highly radioactive material in spent fuel that existing recycling
technologies dispose of as waste. The advanced technologies would not
eliminate the need for a geologic repository because some of the high-
level radioactive material in spent fuel cannot be recycled. However,
according to DOE, widespread use of advanced technologies could
eliminate the need for a second repository during this century.
* Reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation. DOE aims to mitigate the
proliferation risk associated with current technologies for recycling
spent fuel. The advanced reprocessing technologies that would allow
more extensive recycling would not separate out pure plutonium but
rather keep it mixed with other radioactive material in spent fuel.
Such advanced technologies are intended to make it more difficult for
rogue states or terrorists to divert or steal plutonium from facilities
that recycle spent nuclear fuel. DOE has also proposed that the use of
such technologies be limited to the United States and certain countries
that have operational reprocessing plants: China, France, Japan,
Russia, and the United Kingdom.
GNEP would address these objectives through a domestic component and an
international component. The domestic component--the subject of this
report--is the proposal to design and build three new facilities to
begin recycling spent nuclear fuel as an alternative to direct disposal
in a geologic repository. Two of the new facilities--an advanced
reprocessing plant for separating reusable materials from spent nuclear
fuel and fabricating them into recycled fuel, and an advanced reactor
that produces electricity using recycled fuel--would be the first of
multiple plants and reactors needed to provide sufficient recycling
capacity to balance out existing and planned nuclear power plants,
which would continue to generate spent fuel. The third facility would
be built at a DOE site to conduct research and development (R&D) on
advanced recycling technologies. The R&D facility would provide support
to the other two facilities in using advanced recycling technologies.
(See fig. 1 for the domestic component of GNEP.)
Figure 1: Advanced Technologies for Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel
Envisioned under GNEP:
[See PDF for image]
This figure is an illustration of the advanced technologies for
recycling spent nuclear fuel envisioned under GNEP. The following
information is illustrated:
Existing and planned nuclear power plants:
* Fresh fuel is supplied to existing/planned reactors (continuous
process);
* Spent fuel is sent to Advanced reprocessing plants where there is a
separation of reusable materials from remaining waste (continuous
process);
* Waste is sent to Geologic disposal or other waste storage/disposal
(continuous process).
New facilities:
* From advanced reactors:
* Spend recycled fuel is sent to Advanced reprocessing plants where
there is a separation of reusable materials from remaining waste
(continuous process);
* Recycled fuel is returned to the Advanced reactor (continuous
process);
* Waste is sent to Geologic disposal or other waste storage/disposal
(continuous process).
Source: GAO analysis of DOE information.
[End of figure]
The international component of GNEP addresses the risk that countries
might develop nuclear weapons under the guise of peaceful development
of nuclear energy. DOE anticipates that GNEP's domestic component would
help advance its international component because development of
domestic spent fuel recycling facilities would enable the United States
to influence how new reprocessing plants and nuclear power plants being
planned or built worldwide are designed and operated with respect to
nonproliferation and waste disposal. In particular, DOE proposes that a
consortium consisting of the United States and other countries with
advanced nuclear technologies provide a reliable source of fresh fuel
and take back the spent fuel from countries with less developed nuclear
industries. In exchange, such countries would refrain from enriching
uranium for nuclear fuel and reprocessing spent fuel. Twenty countries
had agreed as of February 2008 to partner with DOE under the GNEP
statement of principles to cooperate on development of such a system of
reliable fuel services. Development of advanced recycling technologies
that do not separate pure plutonium, with the long-term goal of ceasing
separation of plutonium and eventually eliminating stocks of separated
civilian plutonium, is also part of the statement of principles.
Since announcing GNEP, DOE has outlined two possible approaches to
designing and building a demonstration of the reprocessing plant and
advanced reactor envisioned under GNEP's domestic component: either at
an engineering scale or a commercial scale. (The R&D facility would
remain the same under either approach.) Under the original approach for
an engineering-scale demonstration, DOE national laboratories would
lead the design and construction of both facilities at a scale smaller
than required for commercialization but larger than for laboratory-
scale R&D. Engineering-scale demonstrations typically precede
commercial-scale deployment and are meant to ensure technologies work
as intended before an investment is made in a larger plant. Shortly
after announcing GNEP, DOE estimated that the total project cost for
all three facilities under an engineering-scale demonstration could
range from $4.2 billion to $9.7 billion and that the facilities could
begin operating between 2011 and 2019. DOE anticipated
commercialization could follow a successful engineering-scale
demonstration within as few as 10 years.
While DOE has not ruled out this original engineering-scale approach,
DOE now favors an accelerated approach of partnering with industry and
using the latest commercially available technology to design and build
a commercial-scale reprocessing plant and advanced reactor without
first building engineering-scale facilities. According to the GNEP
strategic plan, partnering with industry could increase the speed and
reduce the overall cost of arriving at a commercially operated system
of prototype recycling facilities. In particular, the strategic plan
established a goal of developing the facilities in a way that would not
require a large amount of government funding for construction and
operation and stated that industry had indicated a potential
willingness to make substantial investments in building and operating
recycling facilities. DOE anticipates that commercial-scale facilities
could begin operating by 2025, with the final cost and schedule
dependent upon industry proposals. Nonetheless, commercial-scale
facilities would be significantly more expensive than those built at an
engineering scale. For example, a commercial reprocessing plant built
in Japan had capital costs estimated at around $20 billion.
DOE officials expect the Secretary of Energy to decide whether and how
to proceed with GNEP by the end of 2008 at the latest. In the meantime,
DOE is engaged in various efforts to help inform that decision. In
accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, DOE is
preparing an environmental impact statement to evaluate programmatic
alternatives for managing the spent fuel produced by commercial nuclear
power plants. The alternatives include the status quo, in which nuclear
power plants would continue to store the fuel until DOE can dispose of
it in a geologic repository; recycling spent nuclear fuel as proposed
under GNEP; and several alternatives suggested in public comments on
DOE's notice of intent to prepare a programmatic environmental impact
statement. In response to congressional direction, DOE is also
evaluating 13 sites as possible locations for one or more of the three
initial GNEP facilities, although the department will not select sites
for the reprocessing plant and advanced reactor until it has selected
which programmatic alternative to pursue. In keeping with its
preference for accelerating commercialization of spent nuclear fuel
recycling, the department announced in October 2007 that it had
completed cooperative agreements with four industry consortia.[Footnote
5] DOE plans to provide the consortia with up to a total of $60 million
to develop, among other things, conceptual design studies (including
costs and schedules) for the reprocessing plant and advanced reactor
and business plans for commercializing them. The industry consortia
submitted their preliminary design studies and business plans to DOE in
January 2008. After reviewing industry's preliminary documents, GNEP
program officials recommended continued funding for all four consortia,
and DOE announced in March 2008 that it had awarded additional funds to
the four consortia.
DOE has supported R&D on the advanced reprocessing and nuclear reactor
technologies envisioned under GNEP for a number of years under an
existing program, the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. Under this
program, DOE has evaluated options for managing spent nuclear fuel,
including variations of recycling using different reprocessing
technologies and types of reactors. DOE also conducted extensive R&D in
the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s on previous concepts for advanced
reprocessing and reactor technologies. These previous concepts were not
implemented, in part because of concerns about their cost and technical
challenges.[Footnote 6]
Similar concerns have been raised about implementing GNEP. Although
Congress provided for an Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative program in the
Energy Policy Act of 2005,[Footnote 7] subsequent committee reports
have expressed skepticism about specific aspects of DOE's efforts under
GNEP--for example, whether DOE has focused on the recycling
technologies best able to achieve GNEP's objectives. Organizations
concerned about nuclear energy and nuclear nonproliferation have also
raised concerns about whether GNEP will achieve its objectives. Some
have argued that a U.S. decision to participate in reprocessing of
commercial spent nuclear fuel would encourage other countries that do
not currently have reprocessing capabilities to develop them,
increasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation rather than
reducing it. Finally, DOE has a poor record of managing major design
and construction projects, particularly those that use new
technologies. For example, we reported in 2007 that most of DOE's major
projects we reviewed had exceeded cost or schedule estimates, in part
because DOE had not systematically ensured that critical technologies
reflected in its project designs had been demonstrated to work as
intended before committing to construction expenses for full-scale
facilities.[Footnote 8]
This report focuses on the extent to which deployment of the three
initial facilities for recycling spent fuel would address GNEP's
objectives. Because the Secretary of Energy has not yet decided on the
approach to implementing GNEP, we evaluated the extent to which GNEP's
objectives would be addressed by (1) DOE's original approach of
demonstrating advanced spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies in
engineering-scale facilities and (2) the accelerated approach of
working with industry to design and build commercial-scale recycling
facilities. We did not evaluate whether recycling spent nuclear fuel is
preferable to other options, such as directly disposing of spent fuel
in a geologic repository. Such a comparison would require an analysis
of the respective costs and benefits and would have to take into
account other aspects of GNEP, such as the proposal to develop an
international system of reliable fuel services.
To evaluate DOE's original engineering-scale approach, we analyzed
DOE's technology development plan and other documents for GNEP and the
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. We specifically analyzed how DOE had
selected the advanced spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies on
which to focus its R&D, the maturity of those technologies, and DOE's
plan for developing them. We interviewed DOE officials responsible for
managing the R&D, as well as DOE national laboratory officials
responsible for conducting it. We observed spent fuel recycling R&D
activities at four DOE national laboratories and one university
laboratory. We selected the DOE laboratories based on their leading
roles in implementing spent fuel recycling R&D.
To evaluate DOE's accelerated approach to deploying commercial-scale
facilities, we analyzed DOE documents related to its decision to
consider working with industry, including the GNEP strategic plan,
DOE's August 2006 request for industry expressions of interest in
designing and building commercial-scale facilities, and the funding
opportunity announcement for conceptual design studies and other
reports. Furthermore, we reviewed two sets of documents submitted to
DOE: 18 expressions of interest submitted in September 2006 by
companies proposing to design and build GNEP facilities and by other
entities; and preliminary deliverables submitted in January 2008 by the
four industry consortia to which DOE awarded funding for conceptual
design studies, business plans, and related documents. We considered
all of these documents, including the less recent expressions of
interest, because the terms under which DOE would work with industry
are still evolving. Many of the documents contain proprietary
information; to protect such information, this report does not disclose
details of the various industry responses. We interviewed
representatives of the lead firms of the four industry consortia that
received funding under GNEP, as well as representatives of the Nuclear
Energy Institute, which represents the nuclear power industry.
We also interviewed DOE officials in the Office of Nuclear Energy,
which is responsible for implementing GNEP, and offices with
responsibility for related efforts, such as the Yucca Mountain project.
In addition, we met with representatives of organizations that have
raised concerns about or studied issues related to the implementation
of GNEP, such as the Union of Concerned Scientists and NRC's Advisory
Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials. (App. I presents a detailed
discussion of the scope and methodology of our review.)
We conducted this performance audit from November 2006 to April 2008,
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
Results in Brief:
DOE's original approach to the domestic component of GNEP--building
engineering-scale facilities--would meet GNEP's objectives if the
advanced spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies on which it focused
can be successfully developed and commercialized. Successful
development of the advanced technologies would have a greater long-term
impact, compared with existing technologies, on GNEP's waste reduction
objective because the advanced technologies would recycle not only
plutonium but also other radioactive elements that a geologic
repository has limited capacity to accommodate. Keeping plutonium mixed
with these other elements would mitigate proliferation risks relative
to existing technologies because the mixture would be more difficult to
steal or divert and to fashion into a nuclear weapon than pure
plutonium. However, DOE's engineering-scale approach had two
shortcomings. First, it lacked industry participation, potentially
reducing the prospects for eventual commercialization of advanced
recycling technologies. In particular, DOE's original approach included
managing some of the radioactive waste separated from spent fuel in a
way that would add to the cost and difficulty of operating a
reprocessing plant while creating waste management challenges; recent
industry proposals under DOE's accelerated approach include potentially
less costly and complex alternatives for managing this waste. Second,
while building an advanced reactor and R&D facility would allow DOE to
conduct R&D that existing facilities have limited capability to
support, DOE's schedule called for building an engineering-scale
reprocessing plant before developing recycled fuel and other recycling
technologies that would help determine design specifications for the
plant. The schedule unnecessarily increased the risk that the plant
would separate the materials in spent fuel in a form not suitable for
recycling.
DOE's accelerated approach of building commercial-scale facilities
would likely require using unproven evolutions of existing technologies
that would reduce radioactive waste and mitigate proliferation risks to
a much lesser degree than anticipated from more advanced technologies.
In addition, this approach would likely require significant government
investment. Two of the four industry consortia that received funding
under GNEP proposed evolutions of existing technologies that recycle
plutonium and uranium as mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel in existing reactors
even though the GNEP strategic plan ruled out MOX technologies. Such
technologies would reduce the quantity of high-level radioactive waste
requiring geologic disposal to a much lesser degree than the advanced
technologies envisioned under DOE's original approach. The evolutionary
MOX technologies would also mitigate proliferation risks to a lesser
degree because a plutonium-uranium mixture for recycling into MOX fuel
would not contain other radioactive elements that would be recycled
using more advanced technologies--elements that could pose barriers to
obtaining pure plutonium for weapons. While the evolutionary
technologies could allow DOE to accelerate recycling of spent nuclear
fuel, fully meeting GNEP's waste reduction and nonproliferation
objectives would require a later transition to more advanced
technologies. The other two industry consortia proposed to address
GNEP's waste and nonproliferation objectives by using technologies that
are no more mature or in some cases less mature than the advanced
technologies DOE had deemed appropriate for engineering-scale
demonstration under its original approach. Thus, these proposals do not
meet a goal of DOE's accelerated approach of working with industry: to
avoid the need for engineering-scale facilities and increase the speed
of arriving at commercial facilities. Under any of the industry
proposals, DOE is unlikely to meet its goal of developing commercial-
scale facilities in a way that will not require a large amount of
government investment. For example, our review of all four industry
proposals and interviews with DOE officials indicate that none of the
consortia have proposed a way to pay for the initial advanced reactor
other than through government funding. DOE officials acknowledge the
limitations of the department's accelerated approach but cite other
benefits, such as the potential to exert international influence on
nonproliferation issues. They have also said that, if DOE pursues
evolutionary MOX technologies, the department will only do so as part
of a plan for a later transition to more advanced technologies.
Because DOE can fully address GNEP's waste reduction and
nonproliferation objectives only by developing advanced technologies
that are not yet ready for commercial deployment, we recommend that DOE
reassess its preference for an accelerated approach to implementing
GNEP. If DOE decides to pursue design and construction of engineering-
scale facilities, we further recommend that DOE work with industry in
doing so and defer building an engineering-scale reprocessing plant
until conducting sufficient testing and development of recycled fuel to
ensure that the output of the reprocessing plant is suitable for
recycling.
We presented a draft of this report to DOE and NRC for comment. DOE
agreed with many of our findings and concurred with our
recommendations, directed toward the department's original engineering-
scale approach to GNEP, to revise its schedule for an engineering-scale
reprocessing plant and to work with industry to the extent possible.
With regard to our recommendation that DOE reassess its preference for
an accelerated approach to implementing GNEP, DOE stated that the
department will continue to perform analyses to support the Secretary
of Energy's decision on the direction for GNEP. DOE and NRC also
provided detailed technical comments, which we have incorporated into
our report as appropriate.
Background:
GNEP is part of the administration's Advanced Energy Initiative for
reducing the nation's reliance on foreign sources of energy and
increasing energy supplies in ways that protect the environment. The
initiative seeks, among other things, to increase funding for R&D to
enable the generation of more electricity from nuclear energy. Benefits
of nuclear energy cited by the administration include avoidance of air
pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, sufficient North American
uranium reserves to fuel nuclear power plants for the foreseeable
future and thus contribute to energy security, and the relatively low
cost to operate nuclear power plants once they have been built and paid
for. Under GNEP, the administration seeks to address two of nuclear
energy's drawbacks--the need to dispose of spent nuclear fuel and the
risk of nuclear proliferation.
DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy has primary responsibility for GNEP and
has established a steering group to coordinate its implementation. The
steering group includes other DOE offices with responsibility for
programs related to GNEP, such as the Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management and the National Nuclear Security Administration, a
separately organized agency within DOE that has responsibility for the
department's nuclear nonproliferation programs. DOE national
laboratories contributing to development of GNEP technologies include
Argonne, Brookhaven, Idaho, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los
Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, Sandia, and Savannah River. The
Office of Nuclear Energy directed the Idaho National Laboratory to
establish a technical integration office to serve as a point of contact
with the other laboratories; integrate R&D and technology development
activities; collect, analyze, and integrate financial and schedule
data; and perform other administrative functions. The technical
integration office oversees seven technical campaigns responsible for
specific aspects of GNEP, each headed at a national laboratory by a
campaign manager.
As required by the department's project management guidance, the Office
of Nuclear Energy is currently evaluating alternative approaches and
recycling scenarios for implementing GNEP's domestic component.
Recycling scenarios differ by the technologies used and materials in
spent fuel that are recycled. Such differences impact the degree to
which GNEP's objectives would be addressed--for example, by the degree
to which recycling of spent nuclear fuel would extend the technical
capacity of a geologic repository to accommodate the remaining high-
level radioactive waste (or, conversely, by the number of geologic
repositories needed to dispose of the waste). DOE has estimated that,
without recycling spent fuel, as many as four repositories could be
required by 2100, assuming that nuclear energy maintains its current
level of electricity generation and each additional repository has a
limit of 70,000 metric tons. Even more repositories would be needed if,
as DOE hopes, nuclear energy increases its share of the nation's
electricity generation beyond the current level of 20 percent. In
contrast, DOE hopes to develop advanced recycling technologies that
would result in needing only one geologic repository this century.
Absent a second repository, DOE would not legally be able to avail
itself of the Yucca Mountain geologic repository's full technical
capacity unless the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 were amended. The
act allows no more than 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel, or the high-
level radioactive waste that results from reprocessing no more than
70,000 metric tons of spent fuel, to be disposed of in the repository
unless a second repository is in operation. In contrast, GNEP is based
on the assumption that the repository has a technical capacity to
accommodate the high-level radioactive waste from reprocessing a much
greater amount of spent fuel--if DOE is successful in developing
advanced recycling technologies.[Footnote 9] According to an analysis
conducted by Argonne National Laboratory, the repository's technical
capacity would be based on performance specifications designed to limit
releases of the radioactivity in spent nuclear fuel to the environment.
Since the spent nuclear fuel and other high-level waste stored in the
repository can generate heat for long periods of time and the
repository's performance can be affected by temperature, many of the
performance specifications would be in the form of temperature limits.
DOE proposes under GNEP to recycle or otherwise manage the materials in
spent fuel that are significant contributors to decay heat, thereby
allowing more of the remaining waste to be disposed of in the
repository without exceeding the temperature limits.
Materials in Spent Nuclear Fuel:
Hundreds of fuel assemblies--bundles of long metal tubes filled with
uranium pellets--form the core of a typical nuclear power reactor (see
fig. 2). Reactors produce energy when uranium atoms split (fission)
into smaller elements, called fission products. Some of the uranium
atoms do not split but rather are transformed into transuranics--
elements heavier than uranium--such as plutonium. With the buildup of
fission products, the uranium loses its ability to sustain a nuclear
reaction, and the fuel assemblies are then removed for replacement.
Removed assemblies (spent nuclear fuel) are some of the most hazardous
materials made by humans. Without protective shielding, radiation from
the spent fuel can kill a person directly exposed to it within minutes
or increase the risk of cancer in people exposed to smaller doses.
Figure 2: Nuclear Fuel Assembly and Uranium Pellet:
[See PDF for image]
This figure contains an illustration of a nuclear fuel assembly and a
photograph of a uranium pellet.
[End of figure]
The uranium, fission products, and transuranics in spent fuel differ in
terms of the impact they have on the technical capacity of a geologic
repository as a result of their decay heat. They also differ in terms
of their energy value and potential to be recycled. Uranium that was
present in fresh fuel forms up to about 96 percent of the material in
spent fuel. The uranium is not highly radioactive and contributes
little to the decay heat of spent fuel. DOE has proposed under GNEP
that the uranium, which has not lost all of its energy value, be stored
for future recycling if it becomes economically viable to do so.
Alternatively, DOE has suggested the uranium could be managed as low-
level radioactive waste, which does not require disposal in a geologic
repository. Fission products, which constitute about 3 percent to 5
percent of the material in spent fuel, do not have energy value as fuel
for a reactor and under GNEP would be disposed of as high-level
radioactive waste. Two key fission products--cesium and strontium--are
significant contributors to the decay heat in spent fuel. Because the
fission products would no longer be contained within a fuel assembly,
other ways of containing them would need to be used to ensure their
safe disposal. DOE has conducted and continues to conduct R&D to enable
disposal of the fission products as high-level waste. Transuranics,
which include plutonium, constitute the smallest percentage of spent
fuel. They are of primary interest under GNEP because they have energy
value if advanced technologies for recycling them in reactors can be
successfully developed. Transuranics also contribute to the long-term
decay heat in spent fuel, and recycling them could extend the capacity
of a geologic repository to accommodate the remaining high-level
radioactive waste. (See table 1.)
Table 1: Materials in Spent Nuclear Fuel and Their Potential
Disposition under GNEP:
Material: Uranium;
Percentage of spent fuel[A]: 96;
Decay heat characteristics of significance to the technical capacity of
a geologic repository: Uranium is not a significant contributor to
decay heat in spent fuel;
Potential disposition under GNEP: Storage for later recycling or, if
not recycled, disposal as low-level waste.
Material: Fission products (e.g., cesium and strontium);
Percentage of spent fuel[A]: 3;
Decay heat characteristics of significance to the technical capacity of
a geologic repository: Cesium and strontium dominate decay heat for
decades after spent fuel is removed from a reactor;
Potential disposition under GNEP: Disposal as high-level waste in a
geologic repository, or, in the case of cesium and strontium, potential
storage to allow radioactive decay to low-level waste.
Material: Transuranics (plutonium, neptunium, americium, and curium);
Percentage of spent fuel[A]: 1;
Decay heat characteristics of significance to the technical capacity of
a geologic repository: Transuranics dominate decay heat for thousands
of years after spent fuel is removed from a reactor;
Potential disposition under GNEP: Recycling in an advanced reactor,
assuming successful R&D on recycled fuel containing the transuranics.
Material: Total;
Percentage of spent fuel[A]: 100;
Source: GAO analysis of DOE information.
[A] The percentages of materials in spent fuel vary depending on the
characteristics of particular fuel assemblies and do not include the
structural hardware of the assemblies.
[End of table]
Technologies for Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel:
Recycling spent fuel requires that a reprocessing plant break apart the
used fuel assemblies and separate the reusable materials from the
remaining waste. The reusable materials are then fabricated into
recycled fuel for reactors. Under GNEP, DOE national laboratories are
conducting R&D to develop advanced technologies for each of these
steps. PUREX--the reprocessing technology originally developed in the
United States to obtain plutonium for nuclear weapons and now used for
commercial purposes in France, Japan, and other countries--separates
out plutonium. According to DOE, the PUREX reprocessing technology can
be adapted to recombine plutonium with uranium before the plutonium
leaves the plant's radioactive processing area and thereby reduce the
possibility of using a reprocessing plant to produce plutonium. Japan
has made such an adaptation to its reprocessing plant. In contrast,
advanced reprocessing technologies being developed by the national
laboratories (generally known as the UREX+ suite of processes) would
completely avoid separating out plutonium and would instead keep it
mixed with one or more of the other transuranics, which would provide a
higher level of proliferation resistance. The inclusion of other
transuranics is intended to make it easier to detect theft or diversion
of plutonium and to increase the difficulty of using the plutonium in a
nuclear weapon.
The DOE national laboratories are also developing advanced technologies
for fabricating and using recycled fuel that contains not only uranium
and plutonium but also one or more of the other transuranics. In
contrast, recycled fuel derived from existing technologies--called
mixed oxide (MOX) fuel[Footnote 10]--contains uranium and plutonium but
not other transuranics, which are disposed of as waste despite their
potential energy value. Under GNEP, DOE is considering various options
for the recycled fuel and has not made a final decision on many of
them, such as whether the reusable materials should be in the form of
metal or oxide and whether all of the reusable materials should be
fabricated together or some fabricated and recycled separately.
Decisions on such options will in part affect another set of decisions
on advanced reprocessing technologies (e.g., the technology chosen from
among the UREX+ suite of processes).
The advanced reactor envisioned under GNEP would be used to transmute
transuranics, or convert them into materials that generate decay heat
for a shorter period of time, thereby extending the capacity of a
geologic repository to store the remaining waste. The type of advanced
reactor DOE plans to develop under GNEP is a "fast" reactor, as opposed
to a "thermal" reactor. These terms refer to the neutron energy level
at which a nuclear reaction is sustained in a reactor: Fast reactors
operate with higher energy neutrons than thermal reactors. DOE
specifically selected a fast reactor cooled by sodium as the advanced
reactor for GNEP, in part because the technology for sodium-cooled fast
reactors is considered to be more advanced than the technology for
other types of fast reactors. However, while the United States and
other countries have built and operated sodium-cooled fast reactors,
largely for research purposes, no fast reactors are currently operating
in the United States. In contrast, almost all commercial nuclear power
plants and other operating reactors are thermal reactors--particularly
light water reactors, which use ordinary water as a coolant.
NRC would have licensing and regulatory authority to ensure the safety
of any commercial facilities for recycling spent fuel, including
reprocessing plants and advanced reactors. Based on a preliminary
assessment, NRC has concluded that changes in regulations and
associated regulatory guidance would be necessary to support an
efficient and effective licensing review of commercial GNEP facilities.
Reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel would also produce low-
level radioactive waste, potentially in large quantity, and gaseous
waste products. According to NRC, disposal of such wastes would face
multiple technical, legislative, and regulatory challenges that, while
not insurmountable, would nonetheless be significant.
DOE's Original Engineering-Scale Approach Would Meet GNEP's Objectives
If Advanced Recycling Technologies Are Successfully Developed:
Successful development and commercialization of advanced recycling
technologies envisioned under the engineering-scale approach would have
a greater long-term impact, compared with existing technologies, on
GNEP's waste reduction objective. The advanced technologies would also
mitigate proliferation risks relative to existing technologies.
However, the engineering-scale approach lacked industry participation,
potentially reducing the prospects for eventual commercialization of
advanced technologies. Furthermore, the approach included building an
engineering-scale reprocessing plant before conducting R&D that could
help determine the plant's design requirements. In contrast, building
an advanced reactor and R&D facility would allow DOE to conduct R&D
that existing DOE facilities have limited capability to support.
Successful Development of Advanced Recycling Technologies Would Be an
Initial Step toward Greatly Extending the Capacity of a Geologic
Repository:
DOE's original approach to GNEP would demonstrate at an engineering
scale advanced technologies for recycling all of the transuranics in
spent nuclear fuel. Transuranics are the dominant contributors over the
long term to the spent fuel's decay heat, which is a primary limiting
factor in the amount of spent fuel that can be accommodated in a
geologic repository. Thus, successful development and implementation of
technologies for recycling the transuranics could greatly extend the
capacity of a geologic repository to contain the remaining high-level
radioactive waste. For example, according to a recent analysis
conducted by DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, recycling the
transuranics could result, under certain conditions, in an almost
sixfold increase in the amount of remaining waste that could be
accommodated in a geologic repository with a capacity limited by
temperature considerations. While the precise impact of recycling the
transuranics would depend on many factors, such as the recycling
technologies' effectiveness, the potential waste benefit of not
disposing of transuranics in a geologic repository is well recognized,
and development of advanced technologies for transmuting them has been
a focus of DOE's Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative.
DOE has analyzed various advanced technologies, such as different types
of reactors, for transmuting transuranics in spent nuclear fuel. While
an engineering-scale demonstration of any one set of advanced
technologies may require that DOE narrow its focus to the exclusion of
potentially worthy alternatives, there is substantial technical support
for choosing to recycle transuranics using a fast reactor, as DOE has
proposed under GNEP. The choice of reactor is critical from the
standpoint of addressing GNEP's waste reduction objective because
reactors differ in their ability to recycle the transuranics. DOE
specifically selected a fast reactor as the advanced reactor envisioned
under GNEP because its properties theoretically enable it to recycle
transuranics more efficiently than thermal reactors. For example,
analyses conducted by DOE national laboratories indicate that, whereas
thermal reactors would be able to recycle the transuranics at most
about two times, fast reactors would be capable of recycling the
transuranics repeatedly. Achieving the waste reduction benefit of not
disposing of transuranics in a geologic repository would require
multiple recycling passes because recycled fuel, like conventional fuel
used in light water reactors, loses its ability to sustain a nuclear
reaction and is thus spent before the transuranics in it are fully
consumed. Other organizations that have cited the benefit of
successfully developing fast reactors to recycle transuranics include
the Nuclear Energy Agency, DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory
Committee, and the Electric Power Research Institute.[Footnote 11] For
example, a Nuclear Energy Agency report issued in 2006 stated that
studies have repeatedly demonstrated that fast reactors are more
efficient than light water reactors for recycling and transmuting
transuranics.
The focus on developing fast reactors under DOE's original approach to
GNEP is also justified whether they are used alone or in combination
with other reactor types. Because of the ability of fast reactors to
transmute transuranics, many scenarios for recycling transuranics
include the use of a fast reactor as an essential component. For
example, DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has studied the
possibility of transmuting some of the transuranics in light water
reactors and other transuranics in fast reactors. Such scenarios may
provide advantages, such as the ability to use existing reactors
without needing to deploy as many fast reactors, initial models of
which are expected to be more expensive than light water reactors to
build and operate. The advantages of scenarios for recycling
transuranics in a combination of reactor types would have to be weighed
against the disadvantages, such as the increased requirement for R&D on
two sets of recycling technologies.
Successful development of fast reactors, even given their ability to
transmute transuranics, would only be an initial step toward achieving
GNEP's waste reduction objective. Like any technologies developed for
recycling spent nuclear fuel, fast reactors would require widespread
use and many years of operation before significantly reducing the
inventory of transuranics that would otherwise require disposal in a
geologic repository. For example, according to a hypothetical scenario
analyzed by Idaho National Laboratory, fast reactors would transmute
only about one-quarter of the transuranics produced by nuclear power
plants by the end of the century. The scenario assumes that nuclear
energy and recycling of spent fuel would grow at a brisk pace: By the
end of the century, nuclear power would increase its share of the
nation's electricity generation from about 20 percent to about 33
percent, and fast reactors would account for about 17 percent of the
electricity generated by nuclear power plants. The scenario also
assumes that three reprocessing plants, each with a capacity of 2,000
metric tons per year, would need to start up between 2020 and 2080.
Advanced Recycling Technologies Envisioned under DOE's Original
Approach to GNEP Pose Lower Proliferation Risks Than Existing Recycling
Technologies:
While advanced technologies for recycling spent nuclear fuel would pose
a greater risk of proliferation in comparison with direct disposal in a
geologic repository, they would reduce the risk of proliferation
relative to existing reprocessing technologies that separate out
plutonium. Direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel in a geologic
repository provides a higher level of protection against theft or
diversion of plutonium and its subsequent use in a nuclear weapon than
recycling because spent fuel assemblies are highly radioactive for many
years, and plutonium cannot be obtained from them other than by
reprocessing the spent fuel. In contrast, existing spent fuel recycling
technologies increase the risk of proliferation by separating out
plutonium, which could conceivably be stolen or diverted more easily
than a large radioactive fuel assembly. Existing recycling facilities
address this risk through high levels of security and safeguards
technologies to detect theft or diversion of nuclear materials.
DOE's advanced recycling technologies offer the possibility of
reducing--but not eliminating--the risk of proliferation relative to
existing recycling technologies. The advanced reprocessing technologies
that DOE is developing (the UREX+ suite of processes) would keep
plutonium mixed with one or more of the other transuranics. Of these
technologies, the one that DOE had identified as the preferred option
under its original approach to GNEP (the UREX+1a process) would keep
plutonium mixed with all of the other transuranics, the radiation of
which could create a barrier to handling the plutonium mixture and
fabricating it into a nuclear weapon. However, even with this radiation
barrier, the risk of theft or diversion from a reprocessing plant would
necessitate high levels of security and the use of safeguards
technologies. For example, the Savannah River Site's engineering
analysis of a commercial-scale reprocessing plant using DOE's advanced
reprocessing technology found that nuclear materials in the plant would
fall into a category requiring a high level of protection under DOE
security standards. The risk of theft or diversion from an advanced
reprocessing plant could be even higher if DOE designed the plant to
use one of the other UREX+ processes, which generally keep plutonium
mixed with fewer radioactive transuranics.
DOE's original approach would further address the risk of proliferation
by developing advanced safeguards technologies, such as equipment
capable of near real-time monitoring of materials being reprocessed,
and testing them in the initial facilities proposed under GNEP,
particularly the R&D facility. According to the GNEP safeguards
campaign manager, existing safeguards technologies are not capable on
their own of meeting the standard for detecting plutonium diversion
that DOE hopes to meet with advanced technologies. Furthermore, the use
of advanced reprocessing technologies that keep plutonium mixed with
other transuranics would require the development of new safeguards
technologies capable of detecting and identifying not only plutonium
but also other transuranics.
Lack of Industry Participation Could Reduce the Prospects for
Commercialization and Widespread Use of Advanced Recycling
Technologies:
DOE's original approach to GNEP did not reflect the input of industry
on how to commercialize advanced technologies for recycling spent
nuclear fuel. In particular, DOE's original approach to GNEP included
the proposal to manage two of the key fission products--cesium and
strontium--in a way that some in industry have questioned as too
ambitious. DOE had planned to develop advanced reprocessing
technologies to separate cesium and strontium and to dispose of them
separately from other high-level radioactive waste placed in a geologic
repository. According to Argonne National Laboratory's analysis,
separately disposing of cesium and strontium would multiply the
capacity-extending effect of recycling transuranics. The analysis
suggests that keeping cesium and strontium as well as the transuranics
out of a geologic repository with a capacity limited by temperature
considerations could result in about a 100-fold increase in the amount
of remaining waste that could be accommodated. According to the
analysis, separation and disposal of cesium and strontium would not, on
its own, allow any increase in the amount of remaining waste that could
be accommodated in a temperature-limited repository since the
transuranics are the dominant contributors to decay heat over the long
term.
Separation of cesium and strontium would nonetheless create waste
management challenges while also increasing the cost and complexity of
a reprocessing plant. Although the impact on the capacity of a
repository could be dramatic, cesium and strontium would still need to
be managed as radioactive waste while undergoing radioactive decay--for
approximately 300 years according to DOE's estimate. DOE has suggested
that a site for cesium and strontium could be located at the
reprocessing plant. DOE national laboratory officials have suggested
that an alternative to storing cesium and strontium at a reprocessing
plant is to create a dedicated site at the Yucca Mountain repository.
However, the need to create such a site would entail challenges, such
as public opposition. Furthermore, an engineering analysis of a
commercial-scale reprocessing plant prepared by DOE's Savannah River
Site found that separation of cesium and strontium could account for 25
percent of the plant's life-cycle cost and over 20 percent of its area
and could reduce the plant's performance and reliability because of the
engineering challenges involved.
Representatives of two of the industry consortia that received funding
under GNEP have expressed similar concerns about separating cesium and
strontium and have instead suggested alternatives. For example, one
suggestion is to keep cesium and strontium with other high-level
radioactive waste and store the waste temporarily, for decades rather
than centuries, to allow some radioactive decay before disposal in a
geologic repository. Such alternatives may not achieve the same
extension of Yucca Mountain's capacity estimated by Argonne National
Laboratory but nevertheless indicate the potential insights DOE can
attain by working with industry. DOE officials told us they agree that
working with industry is critical under either its original approach
for an engineering-scale demonstration or its accelerated approach of
building commercial-scale facilities, and DOE is considering industry
suggestions for alternatives to separating cesium and strontium.
DOE's Original Approach to GNEP Included Building a Separate
Engineering-Scale Reprocessing Plant Before Conducting R&D That Would
Help in Designing the Plant:
DOE's original schedule for building the three facilities envisioned
under GNEP called for an engineering-scale reprocessing plant to start
up between 2011 and 2015--several years before the R&D facility and the
fast reactor, which would start up between 2014 and 2019. The more
recent GNEP technology development plan pushed back the schedule for
all three facilities, with the reprocessing plant starting up around
2020, the R&D facility between 2020 and 2022, and the fast reactor
between 2022 and 2024. Regardless of the precise dates, scheduling the
engineering-scale reprocessing plant before the other two facilities
would not allow testing and development conducted at the other two
facilities, particularly the R&D facility, to be incorporated into the
design of the plant.
Specifically, the reprocessing plant would not benefit from testing and
development on recycled fuel and advanced reprocessing and safeguards
technologies. The recycled fuel R&D schedule spans about 20 years,
beginning with testing small samples of different types of recycled
fuel and progressing to entire fuel assemblies, which would be
fabricated in the R&D facility and tested in the fast reactor. DOE is
at the beginning of this effort and has not yet developed technology to
overcome key challenges, such as how to remotely fabricate highly
radioactive recycled fuel. Given the 20-year fuel development schedule,
an engineering-scale reprocessing plant built before making further
progress on fuel R&D would increase the risk that the plant would
separate transuranics in a form not suitable for fabrication into the
type of recycled fuel DOE ultimately chooses to develop. The DOE
Savannah River Site's engineering analysis of a commercial-scale
reprocessing plant ranked the risk of incompatibility between the
output of the plant's spent fuel separations process and recycled fuel
fabrication as the most severe programmatic risk associated with the
plant. In addition, an engineering-scale reprocessing plant built
before the R&D facility could not initially take advantage of advanced
reprocessing and safeguards technologies that DOE intends to test and
develop at the R&D facility. While DOE national laboratories are
currently conducting R&D on such technologies at existing facilities,
the testing is generally at a smaller scale, using kilogram quantities
of spent fuel, than would be possible at the R&D facility envisioned
under GNEP, which would be designed to handle metric tons of spent
fuel.
Under DOE's original time frame, an engineering-scale reprocessing
plant would also be built earlier than needed because it would separate
transuranics before the fast reactor would recycle them as fuel. DOE's
plans for the fast reactor do not call for it to initially use recycled
fuel produced by the reprocessing plant. It would instead start up
using conventional fast reactor fuel, consisting of either uranium or a
combination of uranium and plutonium. Recycled fuel assemblies, which
would initially be fabricated at the R&D facility, would only gradually
begin to replace the conventional fuel as R&D on the recycled fuel
nears completion. Thus, from the standpoint of providing sufficient
quantities of recycled fuel for the first fast reactor, the
reprocessing plant would not be needed until the reactor's need for
recycled fuel exceeded the fabrication capacity of the R&D facility.
While a separate engineering-scale reprocessing plant would not
initially be needed, it could serve at a later point to increase the
maturity of advanced recycling technologies prior to commercialization
and demonstrate the technologies in an industrial setting with higher
requirements for operational efficiency and continuity of operations
than an R&D facility. An expert panel convened by DOE recommended an
annual throughput of 100 metric tons of spent fuel as sufficiently
large to demonstrate the feasibility of scaling up to a commercial
plant, which could have an annual throughput of as much as 2,000 to
3,000 metric tons. Jumping directly from an R&D facility to a
commercial-scale reprocessing plant would increase the risk that new
technologies would not work as intended. In fact, the Savannah River
Site engineering analysis of a commercial-scale reprocessing plant
placed a high risk on the possibility that a plant using new processes
would require changes or adjustments during or following startup and
stated that unanticipated problems requiring equipment modification or
replacement would be likely. A recent report by the National Academies
echoed this concern and recommended engineering-scale facilities for
GNEP because they could be modified faster and at less cost than large-
scale facilities. An engineering-scale reprocessing plant would also
cost substantially less to build than a commercial-scale plant. DOE's
March 2006 mission need statement for GNEP estimated the cost of an
engineering-scale plant at between $0.7 billion and $1.7 billion. In
contrast, DOE has suggested that the cost of a commercial plant could
be estimated by scaling up the almost $20 billion cost of an 800-metric
ton reprocessing plant built in Japan. Using this approach, and DOE's
guideline for scaling facilities of different sizes, a reprocessing
plant with an annual throughput of 3,000 metric tons of spent fuel per
year could cost approximately $44 billion. The Savannah River Site's
engineering analysis of a 3,000-metric ton reprocessing plant suggests
that the cost could also be significantly higher than $44 billion given
the uncertainties in designing a plant to use new technologies.
An alternative to building a new engineering-scale reprocessing plant
is to modify an existing facility at a DOE national laboratory;
however, this alternative may not be cost-effective. The Savannah River
Site studied the feasibility of modifying two existing DOE facilities
that are not currently being used--the F Canyon at the Savannah River
Site and the Fuel Processing Restoration facility at Idaho National
Laboratory. The study found that, while the facilities would be capable
of supporting an engineering-scale demonstration, both would require
major modifications because they are contaminated from previous use or
were designed for other purposes. The study estimated the cost to
backfit the facilities at $1.3 billion to $1.9 billion and $5.4 billion
to $7.9 billion, respectively.
The R&D Facility and Advanced Reactor Would Enable DOE to Develop the
Advanced Recycling Technologies Envisioned under Its Original Approach
to GNEP:
Under DOE's original approach to GNEP, the R&D facility and fast
reactor would enable the DOE national laboratories to increase the
maturity of advanced recycling technologies and to conduct the required
R&D that existing DOE facilities have limited capability to support.
Many of the advanced recycling technologies that were the focus of
DOE's original approach to GNEP are at a low level of maturity and
would benefit from such R&D. For example, testing of DOE's advanced
reprocessing technologies has to date been conducted at the laboratory
scale, using at most kilogram quantities of spent fuel and with
discrete reprocessing steps performed separately rather than
continuously, as in a commercial plant. (See app. II for more
information on the method DOE has used to assess the maturity of spent
fuel recycling technologies and the results of its assessment.) Under
its original approach, DOE estimated the cost of the R&D facility at
$1.5 billion to $3 billion and the cost of the initial fast reactor at
$2 billion to $5 billion.
The R&D facility would provide capabilities--particularly testing and
development of recycled fuel and advanced reprocessing and safeguards
technologies--that the DOE laboratories currently lack. DOE's plan for
developing recycled fuel containing transuranics calls for the R&D
facility to develop remote fabrication techniques for the fuel and to
actually fabricate recycled fuel assemblies for testing in a fast
reactor. While existing facilities at DOE national laboratories can
fabricate start-up fuel for the fast reactor, they have limited
capability to fabricate transuranic-bearing recycled fuel, which would
be more radioactive than start-up fuel and require specialized
facilities with heavy shielding to protect workers. DOE also plans for
the R&D facility to have a high level of flexibility and range of
capabilities so that it can help resolve technical challenges
associated with advanced reprocessing technologies. A further advantage
of the R&D facility is that it would enable reprocessing R&D to be
integrated with fuel fabrication, thereby minimizing shipments of
radioactive materials among national laboratories. A fast reactor, like
the R&D facility, would also provide capabilities that DOE currently
lacks. In particular, while DOE can test small samples of recycled fuel
either in domestic facilities that approximate conditions in a fast
reactor or in fast reactors operated in other countries, a fast reactor
built and operated in the United States would enable DOE to test full-
scale recycled fuel assemblies. Testing of full-scale assemblies would
be required to demonstrate safety and obtain approval by NRC, which
would, in turn, enable the commercialization and construction of
additional fast reactors capable of using recycled fuel.
A decision to proceed with design and construction of an R&D facility
and fast reactor would present DOE with choices regarding the size of
the facilities and whether to rely on existing facilities as an
alternative to new ones. Existing DOE national laboratory facilities
large enough for laboratory-scale R&D on advanced reprocessing
technologies have limitations, and some require upgrades. For example,
Argonne National Laboratory cut back R&D on advanced reprocessing
technologies after the laboratory director decided in October 2007 not
to pursue necessary safety upgrades at a facility due to lack of
funding. Argonne instead transferred the R&D to another laboratory.
Despite such limitations, DOE is evaluating the cost and benefits of
using existing laboratory facilities as an alternative to building all
or part of a new R&D facility.
Design and construction of a fast reactor would also present choices.
DOE does not currently have plans to restart the last one to operate,
the Fast Flux Test Facility in Washington state, which is currently
being deactivated pending decommissioning. DOE officials believe the
cost to restart the facility could be in excess of $500 million.
[Footnote 12] While it could be used to test full-scale fuel
assemblies, DOE officials noted that the facility is not well-suited
for demonstrating innovative technologies for cost reduction and
competitive electricity generation, which would be needed for future
commercialization of fast reactors. In terms of building a new fast
reactor, DOE is evaluating a wide range of sizes. Under DOE's original
approach to GNEP, Argonne National Laboratory, the lead laboratory for
fast reactor development, evaluated sizes for the initial reactor
ranging from 125 to 840 megawatts.[Footnote 13] The laboratory
concluded that 250 megawatts would balance the need for a realistic
test environment against the increased complexity and construction cost
of a larger reactor. However, according to the DOE official in charge
of fast reactor development, a 250 megawatt reactor might not be large
enough to demonstrate competitive electricity generation. Thus, DOE is
evaluating larger sizes, up to 3,000 megawatts, to determine the size
that would best support the reactor's commercialization.
DOE's Accelerated Approach Would Likely Rely on Technologies That Fall
Short of Meeting GNEP's Objectives:
Two of the four industry consortia that DOE has funded under its
accelerated approach to GNEP have proposed using unproven evolutions of
current technologies--particularly the recycling of MOX fuel in
existing reactors--that would reduce waste and mitigate proliferation
risks to a much lesser degree than anticipated from the advanced
technologies envisioned under DOE's original approach. In contrast, the
other two consortia proposed technologies that would address GNEP's
waste reduction and nonproliferation objectives; however, the
technologies are not mature enough for commercial deployment and would
therefore not allow DOE to accelerate design and construction of
commercial-scale facilities. Under any of the proposals, DOE is
unlikely to meet its goal of deploying the facilities in a way that
will not require a large amount of government funding. DOE officials
recognize these limitations and instead point to other benefits of its
accelerated approach.
Two Industry Consortia Have Proposed Using Evolutions of Current
Technologies for Addressing GNEP's Objectives:
Two of the four industry consortia that received funding have submitted
proposals for using unproven evolutions of current recycling
technologies that would represent at best an intermediate step toward
meeting GNEP's waste reduction and nonproliferation objectives. The
proposals call for the initial reprocessing plant to produce MOX fuel
(a mixture of plutonium and uranium), or a variant of MOX, for use in
existing reactors--a technology choice that would not sufficiently
reduce the quantity of transuranics in the high-level radioactive waste
stream to meet GNEP's waste reduction objective. The two industry
consortia also made proposals for dealing with the transuranics not
recycled as part of the MOX fuel in existing reactors. However, the
proposals rely on advanced technologies that are at a low level of
maturity and would require substantial R&D; implementation of such
technologies at a commercial scale would very likely need to follow
after implementation of MOX technologies. Although DOE officials
involved in managing GNEP have recently expressed support for MOX
technologies, the January 2007 GNEP strategic plan rules out MOX on the
grounds that it would offer a minor benefit to a geologic repository
but not meet GNEP's objectives. According to DOE estimates, using MOX
fuel could increase by about 10 percent the amount of waste that could
be disposed of in a geologic repository limited by temperature
considerations. In contrast, as discussed earlier, Argonne National
Laboratory has estimated that successful development of advanced
technologies for recycling transuranics could increase such a
repository's capacity almost sixfold, or by almost 600 percent.
DOE officials said that, given the minor waste benefit associated with
MOX technologies, they would only pursue MOX technologies as part of a
plan to continue to develop more advanced technologies. Specifically,
DOE and others have concluded that fast reactors are critical to the
ability to recycle transuranics. Even in countries such as France,
which currently operates recycling facilities that produce MOX fuel for
light water reactors, development of fast reactors that use
transuranics is a long-term goal. According to Electric Power Research
Institute staff, France did not originally intend for its reprocessing
plant to produce MOX fuel for light water reactors; rather, it
developed MOX programs because fast reactor technology did not progress
as planned and the country needed to address the costs associated with
interim storage and safeguarding of plutonium that had been separated
out through reprocessing.
Both industry proposals for using evolutions of current recycling
technologies to produce MOX fuel would also require DOE to accept less
proliferation-resistant technologies than the department envisioned
when MOX was not under consideration as part of GNEP. DOE's National
Nuclear Security Administration has raised proliferation concerns about
MOX technology, particularly MOX fuel fabrication, and indicated in a
May 2006 GNEP program document that phasing out current reprocessing
technologies (i.e., PUREX) and civilian MOX programs worldwide would
provide nonproliferation benefits. While the evolutionary technologies
would offer some improvement over existing MOX technologies because
they would not separate out pure plutonium, the plutonium mixtures
proposed for recycling into MOX fuel would be less proliferation
resistant than the mixture produced under DOE's original preferred
option (UREX+1a), which would keep plutonium mixed with additional
transuranics. For example, pure plutonium could be obtained from a
plutonium-uranium mixture for producing MOX fuel without using any
heavy shielding from radiation. Moreover, because DOE's schedule for
the reprocessing plant calls for it to begin operation at roughly the
same time as the proposed R&D facility, the plant would not incorporate
advanced nonproliferation safeguards that the R&D facility would
develop. (As discussed earlier, the engineering-scale reprocessing
plant envisioned under DOE's original approach would also face this
limitation, as would any reprocessing plant designed and built prior to
the R&D facility.) Instead, DOE officials have suggested that any new
reprocessing plant built in the United States would incorporate the
latest safeguards technologies available and would also be designed to
accommodate more advanced safeguards as they are developed.
The proposed evolutionary technologies build upon existing commercial
technologies but are in some respects unproven, and their first
deployment at a commercial scale would likely be in the GNEP
facilities. For example, one of the consortia proposed using a process
for keeping plutonium mixed with uranium that, according to the GNEP
separations technologies campaign manager, has only been validated at a
laboratory scale. DOE's ability to meet its nonproliferation objective
would be reduced if the technologies were not successfully developed
and DOE fell back on less advanced technologies for producing MOX fuel,
as both industry consortia have proposed as a backup option. In
particular, such a backup option could result in a reprocessing plant
that separates out plutonium, as is done in Japan. Other technologies
that would likely be demonstrated for the first time at a commercial
scale in GNEP facilities include technologies for controlling certain
radioactive emissions from the reprocessing plant, which would be
needed to meet U.S. environmental regulations.
If these unproven technologies associated with producing MOX fuel for
existing nuclear power plants can be successfully developed, they could
allow the United States to begin recycling spent fuel sooner and on a
larger scale than if DOE relied on more advanced but less mature
technologies. Specifically, the two industry consortia proposed
building a plant by 2023 that could reprocess from 800 to 1,500 metric
tons of spent fuel per year. This throughput would be closer to the
rate at which existing nuclear power plants produce spent fuel--about
2,200 metric tons per year--than the throughput of an engineering-scale
plant.
Two Other Industry Consortia Proposed to Address GNEP's Objectives by
Using Technologies That Are Not Mature Enough for Commercial
Deployment:
DOE would not be able to accelerate deployment of commercial-scale
facilities using technologies proposed by the remaining two industry
consortia that received DOE funding. As explained in the GNEP strategic
plan, one of DOE's goals in working with industry is to avoid the need
for engineering-scale facilities and to increase the speed of arriving
at a commercially operated system of prototype recycling facilities.
However, the two consortia proposed technologies that are in some cases
no more mature or even less mature than the advanced technologies DOE
had planned to demonstrate under its original approach. For example,
one industry consortium proposed to rely on the type of reprocessing
technology (UREX+) that DOE has been developing, which the department
had planned to demonstrate at an engineering scale. The consortium also
proposed a "two-tier" system in which transuranics would first be
recycled in an advanced thermal reactor,[Footnote 14] then in a fast
reactor. However, the advanced thermal reactor technology is still
being developed, and implementing a two-tier system with dual sets of
technologies would significantly increase the need for R&D. The other
industry consortium proposed a type of advanced reprocessing technology
(electrochemical) that DOE considers even less mature for reprocessing
light water reactor spent fuel than the UREX+ technologies being
developed by DOE. Thus, under either industry proposal, skipping the
engineering phase of development would create an undue risk that the
technologies would not work as intended.
On the other hand, the consortia's proposed technologies would, if
successfully developed, address GNEP's waste and nonproliferation
objectives by recycling transuranics in fast reactors and keeping
plutonium mixed with the other transuranics. Representatives of both
consortia have also argued that some of their proposed technologies are
superior to DOE's--for example, that electrochemical reprocessing would
provide a greater intrinsic barrier to proliferation than DOE's
technologies, in part because spent fuel would be processed in batches,
thereby facilitating efforts to track the materials separated from
spent fuel and to detect theft or diversion. Similarly, representatives
of the consortium proposing the two-tier system stated that their
proposed combination of technologies would reduce energy costs compared
with recycling only in fast reactors--for example, because an advanced
thermal reactor would extract more energy from recycled fuel and
convert the energy more efficiently to electricity than a fast reactor.
The Government Would Likely Bear Substantial Costs for Commercial-Scale
Recycling Facilities:
DOE has cited industry's potential willingness to invest substantial
sums of private money to construct and operate GNEP facilities as a
reason for considering commercial-scale facilities. Furthermore, the
GNEP strategic plan established a goal of developing and implementing
such facilities in a way that will not require a large amount of
government construction and operating funding to sustain. However, our
review of industry proposals and interviews with DOE officials indicate
that the department is unlikely to meet this goal, at least for the
first GNEP facilities. Some industry proposals state, for example, that
initial facilities would rely entirely on government support and that
the need for such support would be reduced only after demonstration of
new recycling technologies in the initial facilities and development of
cost-saving features.
Most notably, industry has generally proposed that design and
construction of the initial fast reactor be funded directly by DOE,
perhaps with ongoing government funding or other incentives, such as
fees paid to the reactor operator for using recycled fuel. According to
DOE, the industry proposals estimated the cost of the initial fast
reactor at $2 billion to $4.5 billion--a cost that may be understated
given that DOE's estimate for the cost of a smaller test reactor under
its original approach to GNEP was roughly the same: $2 billion to $5
billion. DOE funding would be required because fast reactors are
initially expected to be more expensive to build and operate than light
water reactors and thus unable to compete with them economically based
on sales of electricity alone. According to DOE, studies by the Nuclear
Energy Agency have estimated that a fast reactor's capital costs, for
example, may be about 25 percent higher than those for light water
reactors. Furthermore, components that would help reduce the cost of a
fast reactor and make it more economically competitive are at a
relatively low level of maturity and, according to some industry
responses, would not be ready for commercial-scale deployment by DOE's
time frame of 2025.
DOE officials recognize that industry will not pay for design and
construction of the initial fast reactor and have considered two other
options: delaying the reactor or sharing the cost with other countries
that are also interested in developing fast reactors. According to the
DOE official in charge of fast reactor development, delaying the
reactor is a possibility if the department decides in favor of
recycling MOX fuel in light water reactors. In addition, DOE has
negotiated a memorandum of understanding with Japan and France to
harmonize fast reactor development efforts. DOE officials have
expressed hope that Japan and France would contribute to the cost of
building a fast reactor in the United States, where it could be
licensed by NRC. A reactor with NRC approval would, in turn, have a
greater potential for commercialization because utilities would have a
higher degree of confidence in the technology.
For the reprocessing plant, two of the industry consortia again
proposed direct funding by DOE. Other funding possibilities might
reduce the government's financial burden but could still require
significant government support. For example, according to DOE, revenues
from sales of MOX fuel produced by the plant for use in light water
reactors would not significantly offset the plant's capital costs and
would not attract sufficient private investment. To use MOX fuel, U.S.
reactors would typically have to undergo some physical modification and
receive a license amendment from NRC. Thus, even though it is generally
more expensive to produce, MOX fuel may have to be sold at a discount
compared with conventional fuel in order for it to be commercially
attractive to U.S. utilities. For example, to ensure a market for MOX
fuel that is to be produced at a DOE facility for recycling surplus
weapons-grade plutonium, DOE has agreed to provide the MOX fuel at a
discounted price and to pay for the necessary modifications to light
water reactors where it will be used. Another funding option proposed
by industry is obtaining private financing backed by federal loan
guarantees or federal contracts to treat a specified volume of spent
nuclear fuel at a set price that would cover operating the plant and
servicing the debt. The government could incur a liability under such
options if industry defaulted on loans or, depending on the specific
conditions of such funding arrangements, if factors such as litigation
or regulatory delays prevented the plant from reprocessing spent fuel.
Industry has also proposed, in expressions of interest and deliverables
submitted to DOE, that at least a portion of the fee that nuclear power
plant operators now pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund--a special fund
under DOE's jurisdiction, subject to annual appropriations by Congress,
for disposal of spent fuel in a geologic repository--be used to pay for
a commercial reprocessing plant.[Footnote 15] Proponents of this option
have called for establishing a separate government entity that could
access the fund, potentially without the need for annual
appropriations. They have also suggested that the current fee be
increased to cover the full costs of spent fuel disposal, including the
cost of both a geologic repository and a reprocessing plant.
Implementing this proposal would require substantial legislative and
regulatory changes. For example, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act does not
allow the Nuclear Waste Fund to be used for reprocessing activities.
DOE officials said that, while they recognize that current legislation
limits how the Nuclear Waste Fund can be used, they would not rule out
proposals to use the fund for GNEP. Instead, a decision by the
Secretary of Energy to support such proposals would be contingent on a
change in legislation.
In addition to requiring direct government funding, working with
industry to design and build commercial-scale facilities would also
likely require that DOE invest significant R&D resources. DOE national
laboratories would need to conduct some of the R&D even under DOE's
original plan for an engineering-scale demonstration--for example, on
technology for capturing radioactive emissions from a reprocessing
plant. However, industry has requested DOE assistance with other R&D,
such as MOX fuel certification, that could divert resources from
advanced technologies ultimately needed to meet GNEP's objectives.
According to the head of GNEP's technical integration office, the
national laboratories would give long-term R&D on advanced technologies
a lower priority than industry's immediate R&D needs.
DOE Officials Recognize the Limitations of Accelerating Deployment of
Commercial-Scale Facilities but Cite Other Benefits:
Given the technologies industry can provide in DOE's time frame, an
accelerated approach would likely require the department to recycle MOX
fuel in existing commercial nuclear power plants. DOE officials
acknowledge that MOX recycling technologies would constitute an
intermediate step toward GNEP's objective of reducing radioactive waste
and that achieving this objective would ultimately require development
of advanced technologies for recycling transuranics in fast reactors.
Nevertheless, according to the officials, working with industry to
deploy commercial-scale facilities to recycle MOX fuel in existing
reactors would provide enough of a waste reduction benefit to allow
time to develop more advanced technologies. The proposal to build GNEP
facilities for recycling MOX fuel in existing reactors as an
intermediate step is similar to a plan DOE put forward in 2005 under
the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, prior to the announcement of GNEP
in February 2006.[Footnote 16] The plan called for developing the
ability to recycle spent nuclear fuel in evolutionary stages, with each
stage helping to develop technology required for the next and providing
successively greater benefits in terms of extending the technical
capacity of a geologic repository. According to DOE, the department is
evaluating the possibility of revising the GNEP strategic plan to allow
for the possibility of recycling MOX fuel in existing reactors, as
previously contemplated under the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative.
With regard to nonproliferation, DOE officials emphasize that the
international benefits of working with industry to deploy commercial-
scale facilities outweigh what DOE considers to be the manageable risk
of nuclear material theft from such a facility built domestically. In
particular, DOE officials consider deploying commercial-scale recycling
facilities as essential for the United States to play a leadership role
among countries with advanced nuclear capabilities and to persuade
other countries that they should rely on international fuel services
rather than developing domestic uranium enrichment or spent fuel
reprocessing capabilities. While they have not ruled out other industry
proposals, DOE officials have also cited nonproliferation benefits of
recycling MOX fuel in light water reactors, such as the ability to
reduce stocks of plutonium that accumulate in spent nuclear fuel;
reducing and eventually eliminating excess stocks of civilian plutonium
is part of the nonproliferation objective set forth in the GNEP
strategic plan. DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee has
indicated that it may be appropriate to consider using existing
reactors for this purpose, particularly if large-scale deployment of
fast reactors, which would also be capable of reducing plutonium
stocks, does not occur until the middle of the century.
Finally, DOE has argued that the government's investment in commercial-
scale spent nuclear fuel recycling facilities would be worthwhile. DOE
officials have said that the benefit of ensuring U.S. leadership on
nonproliferation issues through the construction of commercial-scale
facilities--even ones that rely on evolutionary MOX technologies--would
outweigh the cost to the government. Furthermore, the officials have
suggested that revenues generated by the facilities, such as through
the sale of MOX fuel, would at least offset some of the government's
cost. Utilities that operate commercial nuclear power plants might be
interested in MOX fuel because it could provide an alternative to
uranium fuel, supplies of which could become limited given the
worldwide growth of nuclear energy. Over the longer term, DOE has
argued that recycling spent nuclear fuel would be an attractive option
to the government if the cost of doing so were comparable to direct
disposal, which could require design and construction of multiple
geologic repositories. If DOE chooses to rely on MOX technologies, this
argument hinges on a later transition to more advanced technologies
since, as discussed earlier, recycling MOX fuel in existing reactors
would provide a minor waste reduction benefit.
Conclusions:
Accelerating deployment of commercial-scale spent nuclear fuel
recycling facilities that have a limited impact on GNEP's waste
reduction and nonproliferation objectives would take DOE down a costly
path that would likely draw resources away from developing the advanced
technologies ultimately needed to meet these objectives. The
technologies closest to being commercially available are evolutions of
existing MOX fuel recycling technologies that would reduce waste and
mitigate proliferation risks to a much lesser degree than is
anticipated from advanced technologies for recycling all of the
transuranics in spent nuclear fuel. If DOE pursues an accelerated
approach to deploying commercial-scale facilities, the timing of a
transition to more advanced technologies that fully meet GNEP's waste
reduction and nonproliferation objectives is unclear because such
technologies are at a low-level of maturity and require significant
R&D. Accelerating deployment of commercial-scale facilities could serve
as an intermediate step--but a costly one. While the GNEP strategic
plan suggests that such facilities would need little government
financial support, industry proposals suggest the opposite. As a
result, the level of government financial commitment needed to deploy
commercial-scale facilities would likely draw resources away from R&D
on more advanced technologies and create a risk of delaying rather than
accelerating progress toward ultimately meeting GNEP's waste reduction
and nonproliferation objectives.
DOE's original approach of demonstrating advanced technologies at an
engineering scale appears more likely over the long term to address
GNEP's waste reduction and nonproliferation objectives than the
department's accelerated approach. Nevertheless, an engineering-scale
demonstration is not without risks, including the possibility that
advanced recycling technologies currently at a low level of maturity
might not perform as expected and might not be commercially viable.
DOE's original approach to GNEP in some respects increased these risks.
In particular, an engineering-scale reprocessing plant built according
to DOE's original schedule--before an R&D facility and advanced reactor
that would support testing and development of recycled fuel--could
result in a plant that separates the materials in spent fuel in a form
unsuitable for recycled fuel fabrication. The schedule would also not
allow the plant to incorporate advanced safeguards and reprocessing
technologies developed at the R&D facility. With regard to commercial
viability, DOE's engineering-scale approach lacked industry
participation that could help promote future commercialization and
widespread use of the advanced technologies. DOE's efforts to work with
industry under its accelerated approach to GNEP have mitigated some of
the risk that DOE might focus on developing overly costly and complex
technologies, and working with industry under its engineering-scale
approach could continue to mitigate this risk.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
We recommend that the Secretary of Energy direct the Office of Nuclear
Energy to reassess its preference for an accelerated approach to
implementing GNEP through construction of commercial-scale facilities
using spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies that industry can offer
in DOE's time frame. The reassessment should consider the time and
government resources required to support both the initial spent nuclear
fuel recycling facilities and R&D on more advanced recycling
technologies that fully meet GNEP's objectives.
If DOE decides to pursue design and construction of engineering-scale
facilities for demonstrating advanced technologies, we further
recommend that the Secretary of Energy take the following two actions:
* Revise the schedule for an engineering-scale reprocessing plant so
that the plant is built after an R&D facility and advanced reactor have
conducted sufficient testing and development of recycled fuel to ensure
that the output of the reprocessing plant can be fabricated into
recycled fuel and used in an advanced reactor. The revised schedule
should also allow for the R&D facility to test and demonstrate advanced
reprocessing and safeguards technologies that would be used in the
reprocessing plant.
* Direct the Office of Nuclear Energy to work with industry to the
extent possible on advanced spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies
in order to obtain industry's expertise and input on future
commercialization of such technologies.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We provided a draft of this report to DOE and NRC for their review and
comment. DOE's written comments are reproduced in appendix III. DOE
agreed with many of our findings and concurred with our
recommendations, directed toward the department's original engineering-
scale approach to GNEP, to revise its schedule for an engineering-scale
reprocessing plant and to work with industry to the extent possible.
With regard to our recommendation that DOE reassess its preference for
an accelerated approach to implementing GNEP, DOE stated that the
department will continue to perform analyses to support the Secretary
of Energy's decision on the direction for GNEP. DOE and NRC also
provided detailed technical comments, which we have incorporated into
our report as appropriate.
DOE raised several issues with our draft report. First, DOE stated that
the report gives an erroneous impression that fast reactors can never
be economically competitive with light water reactors. We have
clarified the report to indicate that fast reactors are at least
initially expected to be more expensive to build and operate than light
water reactors. We recognize that one of DOE's research goals is to
develop fast reactors that are competitive with light water reactors.
However, as noted in our report, technologies that would help make fast
reactors more economically competitive are at a low level of maturity.
The low level of maturity of such technologies is a key reason that
industry has proposed the first fast reactor envisioned under GNEP be
funded by DOE.
Second, DOE stated that the report gives an erroneous impression that
recycling MOX fuel in light water reactors in the near-term would have
a limited impact on GNEP's waste reduction and nonproliferation
objectives and would draw resources away from developing advanced
technologies in the long term. We disagree. With regard to waste
reduction, our report accurately states that the GNEP strategic plan
specifically rules out using MOX in light water reactors because it
would offer a minor waste reduction benefit but not meet GNEP's
objectives. Now that the department is considering evolutionary MOX
technologies, DOE cited the substantial reduction in the quantity of
spent nuclear fuel in storage as a significant near-term benefit of
recycling in light water reactors. Our report acknowledges that such a
MOX program could allow DOE to begin recycling spent fuel sooner and on
a larger scale than more advanced but less mature technologies.
Furthermore, we have clarified the report to show that DOE has
indicated it would only pursue evolutionary MOX technologies as part of
a plan to later transition to more advanced technologies for recycling
in fast reactors, which are anticipated to provide a much greater waste
reduction benefit than evolutionary MOX technologies from the
standpoint of extending the capacity of a geologic repository. The
question, in our view, is whether the intermediate benefit of reducing
the quantity of spent nuclear fuel in storage would be worth the
investment in evolutionary MOX technologies. On this point, DOE stated
that facilities for recycling spent fuel in light water reactors would
be funded and constructed by industry only when justified by a sound
business case, without impacting government funding for R&D on more
advanced recycling technologies. In contrast, our report points out
that industry does not expect the evolutionary MOX technologies to be
profitable--at least under current conditions--without some form of
government support and R&D assistance. Thus, while it is conceivable
that the government could provide the necessary support and R&D
assistance while also continuing to fund R&D on more advanced
technologies, the evolutionary technologies could also draw resources
away from the more advanced technologies.
With regard to nonproliferation, DOE called into question our finding
that evolutionary MOX technologies would mitigate proliferation risks
to a lesser degree than anticipated from the advanced technologies
envisioned under the engineering-scale approach to GNEP. Rather than
differentiating between the proliferation resistance of alternative
reprocessing technologies, DOE stated that any reprocessing plant, if
misused, could be modified to create weapons usable material. Thus, it
is the department's view that its nonproliferation objectives would be
largely accomplished through international policies that seek to avoid
the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies while
eliminating existing plutonium inventories and production of material
mixes that are attractive for use in creating a nuclear explosive. We
recognize that the degree of proliferation resistance of reprocessing
technologies is only one aspect of GNEP's nonproliferation objective.
Nonetheless, our report is consistent with the GNEP technology
development plan, which states that the reprocessing technology
preferred under the original approach to GNEP (UREX+1a) provides an
additional degree of proliferation resistance compared with other
processes precisely because it would not separate plutonium from any of
the transuranics. Based on this reasoning, UREX+1a would also provide
an additional degree of proliferation resistance compared with
evolutionary MOX technologies that, for example, keep plutonium mixed
with uranium but not with other transuranics.
As we agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the
contents of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until
30 days from the date of this letter. At that time, we will send copies
of this report to interested congressional committees, the Secretary of
Energy, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and other
interested parties. We will also make copies available to others upon
request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the
GAO Web site at [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please
contact me at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points for our
Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on
the last page of this report. Other staff contributing to this report
are listed in appendix IV.
Signed by:
Gene Aloise:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
List of Committees:
The Honorable Carl Levin:
Chairman:
The Honorable Norm Coleman:
Ranking Member:
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations:
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:
United States Senate:
The Honorable Jeff Bingaman:
Chairman:
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources:
United States Senate:
The Honorable John D. Dingell:
Chairman:
The Honorable Joe Barton:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Energy and Commerce:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Bart Gordon:
Chairman:
The Honorable Ralph M. Hall:
Ranking Member:
Committee on Science and Technology:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Edward J. Markey:
Chairman:
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Bart Stupak:
Chairman:
The Honorable John Shimkus:
Ranking Member:
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations:
Committee on Energy and Commerce:
House of Representatives:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Scope and Methodology:
To evaluate the Department of Energy's (DOE) original engineering-scale
approach to implementing the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP),
we analyzed (1) how DOE had selected the advanced spent nuclear fuel
recycling technologies on which to focus its research and development
(R&D), (2) the department's assessment of the maturity of those
technologies, and (3) the plan for developing them:
* We analyzed DOE's selection of advanced technologies by reviewing the
department's annual Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative comparison reports,
which assess alternative recycling technologies against waste
reduction, nonproliferation, and other criteria. We also reviewed
related DOE national laboratory documents, including technical analyses
of recycling technologies not selected for development under GNEP. We
compared DOE's selection with assessments conducted by independent
organizations and entities with expertise in recycling of spent nuclear
fuel, including the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development and DOE's Nuclear Energy Research
Advisory Committee, and the National Research Council of the National
Academies.[Footnote 17] We interviewed officials of the DOE Office of
Nuclear Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, and DOE
national laboratories regarding the selection of advanced technologies
under GNEP.
* We analyzed DOE's assessment of the maturity of advanced recycling
technologies as presented in the GNEP technology development plan. We
specifically analyzed how DOE had used technology readiness levels
(TRL), a method for ranking the maturity of technologies, and compared
DOE's use of the method to Department of Defense guidance for
technology readiness assessments. We also interviewed DOE and DOE
national laboratory officials about the maturity of the technologies
and their use of TRLs. We observed R&D activities related to
development of advanced reprocessing, fast reactor, waste form, and
recycled fuel technologies at four DOE national laboratories (Argonne,
Idaho, Los Alamos, and Oak Ridge) and interviewed DOE national
laboratory researchers about their efforts. We selected the
laboratories based on their leading roles in implementing spent fuel
recycling R&D. We also observed facilities used for R&D on safeguards
technologies at Idaho State University's accelerator center, which we
elected to visit because of its proximity to Idaho National Laboratory.
* We analyzed DOE's plan for developing advanced spent nuclear fuel
recycling technologies as presented in the GNEP technology development
plan, spent nuclear fuel recycling program plan, and mission need
statement; DOE's budget justifications for the Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative; and other planning documents. We interviewed DOE officials
responsible for managing GNEP, including the officials responsible for
directing work on each of the three initial GNEP facilities and for
overseeing R&D on advanced recycling technologies. We interviewed DOE
national laboratory officials responsible for directing R&D on advanced
recycling technologies, including the head of the GNEP technical
integration office established by DOE at the Idaho National Laboratory
and the seven GNEP campaign managers for systems analysis, separations
(i.e., reprocessing), recycled fuel, fast reactors, safeguards, waste
forms, and grid-appropriate reactors.[Footnote 18] We observed DOE
national laboratory facilities that DOE has evaluated for use in GNEP
as an alternative to building new facilities, particularly the F Canyon
at the Savannah River Site and the Fuel Processing Restoration facility
at Idaho National Laboratory. We also interviewed Savannah River Site
officials regarding their engineering alternative studies for a
commercial-scale reprocessing plant based on the advanced technologies
that were the focus of DOE's original approach to GNEP.
To evaluate DOE's accelerated approach of working with industry to
design and build commercial-scale recycling facilities, we analyzed DOE
documents related to the department's decision to consider working with
industry, including the August 2006 request for industry expressions of
interest in designing and building a commercial-scale reprocessing
plant and fast reactor, the January 2007 GNEP strategic plan, and the
funding opportunity announcement for conceptual design studies,
business plans, and related documents. Furthermore, we reviewed two
sets of documents submitted to DOE: 18 expressions of interest
submitted in September 2006 by companies proposing to design and build
GNEP facilities and by other entities; and preliminary deliverables
submitted in January 2008 by the four industry consortia to which DOE
awarded funding pursuant to the funding opportunity announcement. We
considered all of these documents, including the less recent
expressions of interest, because the terms under which DOE would work
with industry are still evolving. Many of the documents contain
proprietary information; to protect such information, this report does
not disclose details of the various industry responses. We evaluated
the documents submitted to DOE to determine the spent nuclear fuel
recycling technologies proposed for addressing GNEP's waste reduction
and nonproliferation objectives; the maturity of the technologies and
the R&D needed to support their use in commercial-scale facilities; and
the means proposed for funding initial GNEP facilities. We also
reviewed the results of DOE's evaluation of the 18 expressions of
interest, as summarized in a November 2006 report, and we interviewed
DOE officials regarding their assessment of industry's January 2008
preliminary deliverables. We interviewed representatives of lead firms
for the four consortia that received funding under GNEP--AREVA, Energy
Solutions, General Electric, and General Atomics--as well as
representatives of the Nuclear Energy Institute, which represents the
nuclear power industry, and the Electric Power Research Institute.
To evaluate issues of significance to both approaches DOE is
considering for implementing GNEP, we interviewed DOE officials in the
Office of Nuclear Energy, including the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear
Energy (who serves as the GNEP program manager) and the deputy GNEP
program manager; the director and other officials of the Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which is responsible for the
Yucca Mountain geologic repository; and the National Nuclear Security
Administration, which assists the Office of Nuclear Energy on
nonproliferation issues related to GNEP. We also interviewed officials
of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which would have regulatory
authority over commercial facilities for recycling spent nuclear fuel;
and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, an independent agency of
the U.S. Federal Government that provides independent scientific and
technical oversight of DOE's program for managing and disposing of high-
level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. We reviewed DOE's
January 2007 notice of intent to prepare a programmatic environmental
impact statement for GNEP, and we attended two public hearings on the
proposed scope of the programmatic environmental impact statement--one
in Ohio near a site being studied to host GNEP facilities and one in
Washington, D.C. In addition, we attended DOE's October 2007 annual
meeting for GNEP, which included updates on DOE's R&D efforts and plans
for initial spent fuel recycling facilities; open meetings related to
GNEP convened by NRC's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and
Materials and the National Academies; and the American Nuclear
Society's 2007 annual meeting, which included sessions related to GNEP
and recycling of spent nuclear fuel. Finally, we met with
representatives of nongovernmental organizations that have raised
concerns about or studied issues related to the implementation of GNEP,
such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned
Scientists, and the Institute for Policy Studies.
We conducted this performance audit from November 2006 to April 2008,
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain
sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our
findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that
the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and
conclusions based on our audit objectives.
[End of section]
Appendix II: DOE's Use of Technology Readiness Levels to Assess the
Maturity of Spent Fuel Recycling Technologies:
The Office of Nuclear Energy has begun to assess the maturity of spent
fuel recycling technologies using technology readiness levels (TRL), a
method pioneered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
for measuring and communicating the risks associated with critical
technologies in first-of-a-kind applications. The Office of Nuclear
Energy also has required that the industry consortia receiving funds
under GNEP apply the method to the technologies they propose for
deployment. Using a scale from one (basic principles observed) through
nine (total system used successfully in project operations), TRLs show
the extent to which technologies have been demonstrated to work as
intended. Demonstration of new technologies at successively larger
scales is one way to increase their maturity, thereby mitigating the
risk of cost or schedule overruns in the design and construction of
commercial-scale facilities and limiting investment in potentially
ineffective technologies. GAO considers seven (subsystem demonstrated
in an operational environment) to be an acceptable level of readiness
before proceeding with final design and committing to definitive cost
and schedule estimates. Based on our review of DOE major projects, we
recommended that DOE evaluate and consider adopting a disciplined and
consistent approach for assessing TRLs.[Footnote 19] DOE concurred with
our recommendation and has piloted the TRL method in an Office of
Environmental Management project, but the department has not decided
whether to incorporate the method into its project management guidance.
The Office of Nuclear Energy has adopted the use of TRLs to assess the
maturity of spent fuel recycling technologies even though doing so is
not a requirement of DOE's project management guidance. The GNEP
technology development plan grouped the nine-point scale into three
categories: concept development (1 to 3), proof-of-principle (4 to 6),
and proof-of-performance (7 to 9). The plan placed virtually all of the
advanced spent fuel recycling technologies in the proof-of-principle
category: reprocessing of spent fuel produced by both light water
reactors and fast reactors; development of new waste forms, which would
need to be incorporated into a reprocessing plant to ensure the safe
disposal of radioactive waste separated from spent fuel; recycled fuel
containing plutonium and other transuranics, in terms of both
fabrication and performance; and technologies for reducing the cost of
fast reactors. Based on our review of the technology development plan
and interviews with DOE national laboratory officials, some of the
advanced technologies are in fact at an even lower level of maturity
than indicated in the plan. In particular, the campaign manager for
reprocessing technologies provided us with additional information
showing that several of the waste forms are at a readiness level of 2
to 3 (concept development) as opposed to 4, as indicated in the plan.
Similarly, he provided us with information indicating that some key
technologies for reprocessing spent fuel produced by existing light
water reactors (i.e., the UREX+ technologies) are at a readiness level
of 4 as opposed to 5.
DOE national laboratory officials told us they generally support the
use of TRLs to assess the technology maturity and direct limited R&D
resources but also pointed out limitations of the method. For example,
readiness levels do not indicate the time or resources required to
increase the maturity of spent fuel recycling technologies or the
obstacles DOE faces. In the case of recycled fuel containing plutonium
and other transuranics, the R&D schedule spans about 20 years. DOE is
at the beginning of this effort and has already encountered obstacles.
For example, DOE so far has not manufactured fuel samples that contain
curium, one of the transuranics, because it is highly radioactive and
would require remote fabrication techniques that the department has not
yet developed. Furthermore, DOE plans to rely at least in part on
foreign reactors to test the fuel samples, and it was not able to test
one of the samples in the French fast reactor where it had planned
because of regulatory obstacles in France. The head of the GNEP
technical integration office also told us that high readiness levels
can mask the challenges DOE would face in designing and building a
facility, particularly a fast reactor. The United States has designed
and built several fast reactors, so the GNEP technology development
plan assigns many of the basic fast reactor components a high readiness
level. However, construction on the last fast reactor ended over a
quarter century ago. As a result, the United States has lost much of
the technical infrastructure and expertise needed to build another
reactor.
While the Office of Nuclear Energy deserves credit for adopting the use
of the TRLs, despite the method's limitations and the lack of a DOE
requirement for using it, we noted areas in which the office could
improve its application of the method, particularly if DOE proceeds
with its plan to design and build engineering-or commercial-scale
recycling facilities. For example, the GNEP technology development plan
did not assign TRLs to advanced safeguards technologies even though
development of such technologies is important to achieving GNEP's
nonproliferation objective. The campaign manager for safeguards
technologies said he had not yet applied the TRL method because the
safeguards campaign is new and because existing technologies are
adequate for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to license the
facilities envisioned under GNEP. Similarly, while the technology
development plan assigned TRLs to advanced reprocessing technologies,
it did not assign them to the individual separations steps and many
pieces of equipment that would make up a reprocessing plant.
[End of section]
Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Energy:
Department of Energy:
Washington, DC 20585:
April 14, 2008:
Mr. Gene Aloise:
Director:
Natural Resources and Environment:
U.S. Government Accountability Office:
441 G St., NW:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Aloise:
The Office of Nuclear Energy received a copy of the draft Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report, "Global Nuclear Energy Partnership:
DOE Should Reassess Its Approach to Designing and Building Spent
Nuclear Fuel Recycling Facilities" (GAO-08-483), which was sent to the
Secretary of Energy on March 27, 2008, and coordinated a Departmental
review. This letter provides our response to your report.
The Department appreciates GAO's evaluation of the Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership program (GNEP). The GAO evaluation focused only on
the domestic component of GNEP, which the GAO has acknowledged includes
a significant international component. As noted in the report, the
Secretary of Energy has not decided on a path forward for the domestic
component of GNEP, and the Department is currently engaged in various
efforts to help inform that decision, including preparing a
programmatic environmental impact statement in accordance with the
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and obtaining additional
input from industry. The report accurately notes that the GNEP program
has evolved since its inception as information was obtained from
industry and other sources (and, in fact, continues to evolve).
The Department agrees with many of the GAO findings, including that
industry feedback and participation in the program is crucial for
success. We also note the significant GAO finding that building a
research and development (R&D) facility and an advanced, fast reactor
would enable the Department to increase the maturity of advanced
recycling technologies and conduct R&D that existing Departmental
facilities have little capability to support. The Department
acknowledges GAO's concerns regarding the timing of an advanced recycle
plant in relation to an R&D facility and a fast reactor, and will
address the issue as the program moves forward.
We would, however, like to emphasize the following points that we
believe were not properly characterized in the report. The Department
believes the report gives the erroneous impression (1) that fast
reactors could never be economically competitive with light water
reactors (LWRs), and (2) that an LWR mixed oxide (MOX) fuel cycle in
the near-term would have limited impact on waste reduction and non-
proliferation objectives and draw resources away from developing
advanced technologies in the long-term. In fact, one of the goals of
the current research program is to develop a fast reactor concept that
would eventually be competitive with LWRs. The Department is also
evaluating industry proposals that would recycle used fuel in LWRs
during the decades it would take for fast reactors to gain wide-scale
commercial usage. It is anticipated that LWR recycle facilities would
be funded and constructed principally by industry only at such time as
justified by a sound business case. Government funding for any GNEP
fuel recycle R&D programs should not be impacted by private, commercial
investment in LWR recycle. A significant benefit of this interim
approach could be the substantial reduction of the quantity of used
fuel assemblies across the nuclear fuel cycle system that otherwise
might remain in storage during future decades prior to the availability
of commercial fast reactor recycle. Pursuing LWR recycle in the near-
term while performing the remaining R&D required for fast reactor
recycle could help establish the conditions necessary for the private
sector to be ultimately willing to switch to fast reactors in the
future, thus enabling a closed, advanced nuclear fuel cycle.
GAO frequently refers to using advanced technologies that are more
proliferation-resistant. The Department believes that any reprocessing
plant if misused could be modified to create weapons usable material.
Therefore, it is our view that non-proliferation objectives would be
largely accomplished through international security and safeguards
policies that seek to avoid the spread of enrichment and reprocessing
technologies to additional nations, while at the same time eliminating
as soon as possible existing inventories of separated plutonium and the
production of material mixes that are attractive for use in creating a
nuclear explosive. (These objectives are at the core of our
international GNEP efforts). Plutonium that is sufficiently diluted
with non-fissile material has a lower material attractiveness -
regardless of the reprocessing technology used. The Department is
developing technologies that do not separate pure plutonium - and can
support similar approaches described by industry - while maintaining
its non-proliferation objectives.
The Department agrees with GAO's recommendations to revise the schedule
to ensure proper alignment of development and deployment activities,
and to work with industry to the extent possible. The Department is
actively engaged in GNEP planning and will continue to perform
technical, economic, and strategic analyses as appropriate to support
the Secretary's decision on the program's direction. We are currently
evaluating reasonable alternatives in the context of the draft GNEP
Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and will soon receive
further detailed input from industry.
I want to thank you for the opportunity to review your report and ask
that if you have any questions regarding the Department's comments,
please direct them to Mr. Paul Lisowski, of my staff, at 202-586-8105.
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Dennis R. Spurgeon:
Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy:
[End of section]
Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments:
GAO Contact:
Gene Aloise, (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov:
Staff Acknowledgments:
In addition to the contact named above, Daniel Feehan (Assistant
Director), Joseph H. Cook, Nancy Crothers, Chris Kunitz, and Cynthia
Norris made key contributions to this report. Also contributing to this
report were Nabajyoti Barkakati, Doreen Eng, Mehrzad Nadji, Omari
Norman, and Rebecca Shea.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Public Law 97-425 (96 Stat. 2201).
[2] For more information on the status of DOE efforts to prepare a
license application for the repository, see GAO, Yucca Mountain: DOE
Has Improved Its Quality Assurance Program, but Whether Its Application
for a NRC License Will Be High Quality Is Unclear, [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-07-1010] (Washington, D.C.: Aug.
2, 2007).
[3] Under DOE's plans for the repository, the statutory limit would
allow for 63,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel and 7,000
metric tons of government-owned high-level radioactive waste and spent
nuclear fuel.
[4] 42 U.S.C. § 10172a.
[5] The four consortia are led by AREVA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Ltd.; EnergySolutions LLC; GE-Hitachi Nuclear Americas LLC; and General
Atomics.
[6] We previously reported on the challenges faced by such efforts,
including funding constraints and the high cost and long time needed to
develop and implement technologies. For further information, see GAO,
Nuclear Science: Developing Technology to Reduce Radioactive Waste May
Take Decades and Be Costly, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO/RCED-94-16] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 10, 1993).
[7] Congress required DOE to conduct a research, development, and
demonstration program to evaluate recycling technologies as an
alternative national strategy for spent nuclear fuel. Pub. L. No. 109-
58, § 953, 119 Stat. 594, 886 (2005).
[8] GAO, Department of Energy: Major Construction Projects Need a
Consistent Approach for Assessing Technology Readiness to Help Avoid
Cost Increases and Delays, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-07-336] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27, 2007).
[9] References in this report to the capacity of the Yucca Mountain
geologic repository are to its technical capacity unless otherwise
noted.
[10] Specifically, MOX fuel contains a mixture of plutonium oxide and
uranium oxide.
[11] The Nuclear Energy Agency is part of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, an intergovernmental organization of
industrialized countries. The mission of the Nuclear Energy Agency
includes providing assessments of nuclear energy policy. The Nuclear
Energy Advisory Committee, formerly the Nuclear Energy Research
Advisory Committee, provides advice to the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy
on science and technical issues related to DOE's nuclear energy
program. The Electric Power Research Institute conducts R&D on behalf
of the electricity industry, including R&D on nuclear energy
technologies.
[12] The Columbia Basin Consulting Group, which favors restarting the
facility, developed the $500 million estimate. DOE officials do not
consider the estimate to be reliable because it was developed quickly
and has not been independently validated.
[13] These sizes are expressed in thermal power, which is the gross
power of a reactor and does not take into account the efficiency of
conversion to electricity.
[14] The consortium specifically recommended the use of a gas-cooled
thermal reactor of the type being developed by DOE under a different
nuclear energy R&D program. For more information on this program, see
GAO, Nuclear Energy: Status of DOE's Effort to Develop the Next
Generation Nuclear Plant, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-06-1056] (Washington, D.C.: Sept. 20, 2006).
[15] The fee is currently set at one mil ($0.001) per kilowatt-hour of
electricity generated and sold by the power plants.
[16] For more information on this plan, see DOE, Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative: Objectives, Approach, and Technology Summary (Washington,
D.C., May 2005).
[17] Two key National Research Council reports we reviewed include
National Academy Press, Review of DOE's Nuclear Energy Research and
Development Program (Washington, D.C., Oct. 29, 2007), and Nuclear
Wastes: Technologies for Separations and Transmutation (Washington,
D.C., 1996).
[18] Development of grid-appropriate reactors scaled for small
electricity grids and suited to conditions in developing nations is
part of the international component of GNEP and was not a focus of our
review.
[19] GAO, Department of Energy: Major Construction Projects Need a
Consistent Approach for Assessing Technology Readiness to Help Avoid
Cost Increases and Delays, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-
bin/getrpt?GAO-07-336] (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 27, 2007).
[End of section]
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