Don't Waste South Carolina

The Bush administration is requesting $405 million in FY2008 for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), a program to restart reprocessing of commercial spent nuclear fuel in the United States. Reprocessing is the separation of plutonium, uranium and other elements from spent fuel. GNEP has serious implications for U.S. non-proliferation policy, budgetary priorities, radioactive waste programs, and public health and safety, and is likely to be a contentious issue in the upcoming FY2008 Energy and Water appropriations bill.

When the Department of Energy (DOE) first presented GNEP to Congress, the program was largely framed as a long-term research and development program to develop "advanced recycling technologies." Only one year later, the DOE is proposing to build a commercial-scale reprocessing facility and a full-scale fast reactor using existing technologies similar to those used in Europe and Japan. The DOE plans to select one or more sites in 2008. In South Carolina there are two potential sites that the DOE is considering.

The DOE and other GNEP proponents point to the fact that other countries, including the UK, France and Japan, reprocess nuclear waste as justification for why the United States should also do so. These programs, however, have not been economically or technically successful, nor have they solved the problem of nuclear waste in those countries. Two speakers will review the U.S. and foreign experience.

WHEN: 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, 5/9/02

WHERE: Baker & Baker Room, Garden level, Richland County Library, 1431 Assembly Street, Columbia, SC

WHO:

The briefing is sponsored by the Bachman Chapter of the Sierra Club and Carolina Peace Resource Center.