Don't Waste South Carolina

Here's some general talking points on GNEP from Nukewatch South.

TALKING POINTS FOR GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership)

• SRS already has 35,000,000 gallons of high-level waste from processing plutonium out of spent nuclear fuel. GNEP would produce SEVERAL TIMES that amount of high-level waste. What will be th environmental impacts, and costs, of disposing of existing SRS waste in addition to disposing of additional GNEP wastes?
• SRS is already slated to process and secure 50 tons of surplus leftover Cold War plutonium either by immobilization in existing waste and/or in a MOX program (which is already several years behind schedule). GNEP would produce upwards of 350 tons of plutonium!! What will be the costs and environmental impacts of securing and processing many times the amount of weapons-usable plutonium which already threatens global security?
• GNEP purports to offer a solution to the growing national nuclear waste problem and the failure of geologic repository (Yucca Mountain). GNEP would consolidate the nation¹s spent nuclear power plant fuel on one site, yet offers no storage options beyond what is already in use at existing sites (pool storage and dry cask storage). How will environmental impacts and costs of nuclear waste storage at Barnwell or SRS compare to the alternative of continued on-site at-reactor storage? What with the environmental impacts and costs be of GNEP¹s requirements for transportation and extended on-site storage of nuclear waste at SRS/Barnwell? (see Principles of Nuclear Waste Storage attached)
• The nation¹s commercial spent nuclear fuel disposal costs are currently to be paid by the user via contributions to the Nuclear Waste Fund from utility ratepayers. GNEP is proposed to be funded by taxpayer money and has been estimated by the National Academy of Sciences to cost at least $100 BILLION.
• The news is filled daily with threats to global security if North Korea or Iran get plutonium to make nuclear weapons from their reactors. GNEP would produce more than 350 tons of plutonium and circulate it only among ³friends of the U.S.² What are the costs and environmental impacts of the increased threat to national security from leading exclusive international plutonium trade in which global tensions are increased and there is an increased likelihood of plutonium being diverted or stolen?
• What are the environmental impacts from sabotage or terrorism (including a direct jet plane hit) to nuclear waste stored at SRS or Barnwell for the GNEP program?

Here are Don Hancock's points about these meetings:
"Informal community-information activities" are required by the DOE grant
awards, but there's no common format.
I would say that they can be pretty important or unimportant, depending
upon who shows up and whether there's an issue about whether there's strong
community support or not.
In New Mexico, the meetings that Energy Solutions had were very much to our
advantage, as the opponents vastly outnumbered the supporters -- that was
our strategy.  We encouraged people who didn't have a position, but had
questions and wanted to understand what was going on to attend.  Since they
usually didn't get very good answers to their questions, most of them have
become more skeptical.  Some of the questions, of course, are unanswerable
-- what reprocessing technology will you use, how long will you store spent
fuel, how much spent fuel will you store, how much water will you use, what
are the specific air and water emissions that you'll have, etc. etc.
In New Mexico, because they are Q&A, boosters who just want to be "for"
jobs, etc. didn't usually show up in much force.  I wonder if that might
also be the situation in places like Columbia.
Also remember that the grant award requires that there is a report to DOE
within 10 working days of these meetings, so you should make sure that
those summaries are made available so that you can see that they are
accurate.
Don Hancock
Southwest Research and Information Center
PO Box 4524
Albuquerque, NM 87196-4524
(505) 262-1862
(505) 262-1864 (fax)
www.sric.org 

Glenn Carroll

Coordinator

NUCLEAR WATCH SOUTH

(formerly GANE - Georgians Against Nuclear Energy)

P.O. Box 8574

Atlanta, GA 31106

PHONE/FAX: 404-378-4263


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