November 30, 2006 in City

Hanford possible site for nuclear fuel recycling

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YAKIMA – Eleven sites, including the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, have been selected as possible places to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from reactors, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday.

The program is part of the Energy Department’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, which the Bush administration has been touting as a means to safely expand nuclear energy.

The 11 sites will share as much as $16 million in grants next year to begin studies to house either a recycling center that would separate spent fuel for reuse, a fast reactor that could convert highly radioactive materials to shorter-lived isotopes while burning them for power, or both.

Proponents say the program will allow countries to increasingly rely on nuclear energy while reducing the amount of waste generated by nuclear power plants.

“As our economy grows, so will the need for reliable, emissions-free energy generation. Nuclear energy can help meet that need and GNEP can do it in a way that maximizes the benefit of nuclear fuel while minimizing the risk of nuclear proliferation,” Dennis Spurgeon, DOE assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said in a statement.

Critics of the initiative have argued that resuming reprocessing – abandoned in the 1970s for proliferation reasons – could make it easier for terrorists or enemy states to obtain plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The Union of Concerned Scientists condemned Wednesday’s announcement, saying the plan poses serious health, safety and environmental risks in communities where the plants would be located.

“People living near these proposed new nuclear sites should have the right to know the truth and have a say about the massive dangers that some of their neighbors and elected officials want to bring into their communities,” Edwin Lyman, a senior staff scientist, said in a statement.

Sites in Washington, Idaho, South Carolina, New Mexico, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio were selected for consideration. Already, two governors – Mark Sanford, of South Carolina, and Ernie Fletcher, of Kentucky – have submitted letters of support for GNEP activities to come to their states.

In Washington state, critics immediately cried foul over the selection of Hanford. The Energy Department has been working to rid that highly contaminated site of toxic and radioactive waste left from Cold War-era plutonium production for the nation’s weapons arsenal.

“They are wasting taxpayer money pursuing this in Washington state. The public insists that you clean up before you create more, and the state of Washington has the legal authority to say you can’t add more waste to Hanford’s problems,” said Gerry Pollet, executive director of the Seattle-based Hanford watchdog group Heart of America Northwest.

Heart of America also sponsored Initiative 297 in 2004. The initiative, barring the federal government from shipping more waste to Hanford until all existing waste there is cleaned up, was overwhelmingly approved by Washington voters except in Benton and Franklin counties, near the Hanford site.

A federal judge struck down the initiative as unconstitutional in June. The state has appealed.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire said her highest priority at Hanford continues to be cleanup.

“I’m not surprised Hanford made it through the initial review given the high quality of personnel,” she said. “I’ll wait and see how the Department of Energy proceeds. This is another step in the process.”

Deanna Smith, director of public affairs for the Tri-City Development Council, which sponsored one of the two Hanford proposals that have now been consolidated, said the initial study will simply determine whether Hanford’s existing facilities and technology are feasible for the program.

“If my memory serves me, we have more spent fuel sitting here than anywhere else. If for some reason we can get it sited here and built here, we would propose to take care of our own first before taking on anything else,” Smith said. “But you have to look at the bigger picture – nuclear energy is something that everyone is looking at now.

“It is safer, the process is safer,” she said. “Our goal is, if we get it here, let’s clean up Hanford now and use this for our benefit.”

In Idaho, an environmental group also criticized the selection of sites there. The Snake River Alliance maintains that a 1995 cleanup agreement at the Idaho National Laboratory bans the shipment of spent commercial fuel to the site. However, the Energy Department has challenged the validity of some parts of that agreement in court.

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