DOE National Laboratory Directors Highlight Merits of GNEP

May 9, 2006

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Directors of nine of the Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories announced support for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and discussed the collaboration among the labs in carrying out the partnership.

The GNEP technology development and demonstration process is focused on technologies that will:

• Separate the high-energy elements of used nuclear fuel that can be recycled.
• Develop fast burner reactors that can convert these high-energy elements into electricity and shorter lived isotopes, reducing the volume and toxicity of the waste.
• Integrate modern nuclear materials management concepts into each step of the fuel cycle to increase safeguards confidence.
• Close the nuclear fuel cycle through research and technologies for recycling fuel and fabricating fuel suitable for recycling.

GNEP, part of President Bush's Advanced Energy Initiative, will support advanced technologies to recycle spent nuclear fuel and promote emissions-free nuclear energy in a more proliferation-resistant manner. President Bush requested $250M in fiscal year 2007 for GNEP.

The GNEP Technology Demonstration Program is based on a five-year technology plan, which is being developed in consultation with scientists from the DOE's national labs.

Three major demonstration facilities are expected to be built, following the decision on the technologies in fiscal year 2008:

• An engineering-scale demonstration of the Uranium Extraction process (UREX) + and other advanced processes that separate the useful components in used nuclear fuel from its waste components, without separating pure plutonium.
• An advanced fuel cycle facility that will demonstrate advanced proliferation-resistant fuel recycling technologies, including chemical processing; sensors, detectors and monitoring approaches and fuel fabrication. It also will develop advanced safeguards, including instrumentation for materials protection, control and accountability and advanced control and monitoring systems.
• An advanced burner test reactor that will demonstrate the performance of the newly recycled fuel in a facility that will be about one-tenth the size of a current nuclear power plant. This reactor will convert the transuranic elements in used nuclear fuel into shorter-lived isotopes. As the conversion process takes place, significant energy is released and converted into electricity.

The national lab directors have been working on U.S. energy initiatives for several years and see the definition, development and implementation of GNEP as an opportunity to address a national need. They stressed the urgency of proceeding with the work that will make GNEP a reality. Universities and industry also will be involved in all phases of the partnership.

"Moving forward with the research and technology development proposed under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is of great importance to all Americans," said John Grossenbacher, director of the Idaho National Laboratory. "We will be developing and demonstrating in the U.S. new recycling technologies for used nuclear fuel that may produce more energy, reduce nuclear waste and address proliferation concerns. We also will be working on a new generation of reactors with inherently safe features suitable for fueling the economies of the developing world."

"GNEP will also help advance other technologies that are needed for its implementation. For example, developing more efficient and accurate science-based computer simulation tools is critical to meeting the deployment goals of GNEP, since many of our current tools are 20 years old. The advanced simulation tools we will develop to support GNEP will take advantage of developments in basic science, modeling and computer architecture that will help us rapidly test innovative approaches and improve our ability to control sensitive materials," said Bob Rosner, director of the Argonne National Laboratory.

“Taken together, the nuclear fuel-focused technologies to be developed and demonstrated in GNEP will be an enormous step forward in solving both proliferation and waste management concerns,” said Tom Hunter, director of Sandia National Laboratory. “While the nation must have a nuclear waste repository, a successfully implemented GNEP is certainly complimentary to moving forward on Yucca Mountain and can drastically reduce or eliminate the need for additional repositories.”

GNEP also calls for the development of small, proliferation-resistant and naturally safe reactors sized to the electric transmission grids of small, developing nations that need reliable electrical energy for their economic growth.

Source: Idaho National Laboratory.