Nuclear Reprocessing Gets its Foot in the Door

Courtesty of Friends of the Earth - BY STRATTON LAWRENCE

With attention focused on Santee Cooper's efforts to build a new coal-fired
plant in the Pee Dee region, a plan for two new $18 billion nuclear reactors
in Fairfield County has progressed relatively quietly. Power company SCE&G,
which is partnering with Santee Cooper to develop the reactors, is hoping to
increase customer rates by 37 percent to help pay for them.

Environmental groups hesitate to speak out against nuclear power, a
carbon-emissions-free source of energy unlike coal-burning plants, but you'd
be hard-pressed to find any informed tree-hugger testifying about the merits
of reprocessing nuclear waste into new fuel.

On Thurs. Dec. 4, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) hosts a public hearing
in Graniteville, S.C. on the possibility of doing just that.

Proponents tout reprocessing as a way to complete the circle. Nuclear waste
still contains plenty of energy after it's used in a power plant, so at face
value, separating the plutonium and uranium out and reusing it seems
logical. That process, however, generates new waste streams, thus increasing
the volume of radioactive waste (though not the potency), raising
proliferation risks, and, if history is any indication, requiring massive
expenditures to cleanup the mess it makes.

Throughout the Cold War, huge amounts of nuclear waste were reprocessed to
extract weapons-grade plutonium and other elements for the military. The
Savannah River Site (SRS) outside of Aiken was a major location for this
process. Over 30 million gallons of waste are now buried there. Plutonium
was found in the groundwater as early as 1981, and at least nine of the 49
tanks buried there - several partially under the water table - have leaked.
Both DOE and the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control
officials have referred to the SRS tank farm as the greatest environmental
risk facing our state.

In a report to DOE last February, the National Academies named SRS among
four major nuclear sites in need of cleanup, with tank waste at that site
listed as a high-priority, "very expensive and long-term problem." The
report states, "Existing knowledge and technologies are inadequate for (DOE)
to meet all of its clean-up responsibilities in a safe, timely, and
cost-effective way."

Much of that waste is the result of military reprocessing to create nuclear
bombs throughout the Cold War. In 1992, President George Bush began phasing
out reprocessing facilities, leaving one of SRS' two reprocessing "canyons"
as the on ly facility still operating in the U.S. today. President George W.
Bush, however, created the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which
has received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to research
commercial reprocessing, although the partnership's budget was significantly
cut by Congress in 2008 to $179 million.

A Toxic History

The only commercial reprocessing facility in the U.S. operated from 1966 to
1972, in West Valley, N.Y., near Buffalo. Gwyneth Cravens refers to it in
her 2007 book, Power to Save the World, a treatise in support of nuclear
power.

"The waste, small in volume, was eventually immobilized in glass and put in
interim storage," writes Craven, of West Valley. "The company running the
plant decided that environmental regulations made it unprofitable, and it
closed ... Two other reprocessing plants were built in the U.S. but never
used."

One of those two unused plants is in S.C., directly adjacent to SRS.
President Jimmy Carter halted its construction in 1977, when he issued a
directive ending commercial reprocessing projects due to proliferation
fears. Just last week, on Nov. 25, DOE issued a Draft Environmental Impact
Statement for the cleanup of West Valley, over 35 years since operations
ceased there. Without the estimated $7 billion clean-up, the onsite
radioactive contamination will seep into Lakes Erie and Ontario.

In 2006, GNEP began a search for new reprocessing sites. SRS is on e of 11
potential locations, and it has the strong support of Sen. Lindsay Graham
(R-S.C.) and Reps. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Gresham Barrett, (R-S.C.).

"The French have figured out how to significantly reduce their nuclear
waste, and they aren't smarter than we are," Clyburn says. "If we can reduce
our waste, we can have onsite storage irrespective of what happens at Yucca
Mountain."

Yucca is a proposed national nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada, but
public opposition and escalating costs have kept progress stagnant. Both
France and Japan have reprocessing programs, but once the recycled fuel is
used, it is then shipped back for storage at the reprocessing facility. The
United Kingdom and Russia are both phasing out reprocessing programs due to
problems with where to store the waste. Opponents liken reprocessing to a
very expensive shell game, in which waste is reused but not reduced, and is
essentially just moved around. They worry a SRS reprocessing site would
become a de facto nuclear waste dump.

"The whole thing is just one big scam. It's not recycling at all," says Tom
Clements, the southeastern nuclear campaign coordinator for the
environmental-advocacy group Friends of the Earth. "It just makes the waste
problem a lot worse because it creates liquid waste streams. The end result
of reprocessing is a waste of a lot of money and the creation of an
environmental nightmare at every facility where it's proceeded. We just
aren't going to20allow a West Valley to happen here in South Carolina."

Clinton Wolfe, the executive director of Aiken-based Citizens for Nuclear
Technology Awareness, says the notion that reprocessing will create more
waste stems from the Cold War days, and that new technologies allow us to
recycle more of the chemicals and wind up with less highly radioactive
waste. According to Wolfe, 95 percent of nuclear waste's energy content
remains when we typically store it away, making reprocessing the economical
and environmental thing to do. And if the waste stays at SRS, Wolfe says,
"That's fine. And even if it goes somewhere else in the country, first of
all, we'd like to see a commitment to reprocessing." Wolfe's organization
backs any project that furthers nuclear research and brings projects and
money to SRS, where 15,000 Aiken-area residents are employed.

Clements says Wolfe's approach is a short-sighted one that benefits a narrow
group financially, while everyone else bears the burden of a potential
cleanup to a site already contaminated beyond the scope of the government's
ability to rectify.

"The lifeblood of DOE is new, capital intensive projects, and they have
created a kind of fiefdom around the country of communities that are
dependent on a continuous input of money," says Clements. "SRS boosters will
try to get anything, as long as it means money flowing into the area."

Rep. Barrett recognizes and supports that need, and considers the reprocess
ing program a forward-thinking approach, says spokeswoman Colleen Mangone.

"(He) understands the desire of the SRS community to bring new missions to
the site. He is confident that will be expressed during the public comment
period, and he will continue to work toward that goal," she says. Money may
be reprocessing's biggest hurdle. A 2007 study by the Keystone Center,
underwritten by the nuclear industry's lobbying body, the Nuclear Energy
Institute, found that "reprocessing of spent fuel will not be cost-effective
in the foreseeable future." Estimates range from $20 billion to $50 billion
to build a facility, and $700 billion for a national program. The recycled
fuel would require "fast reactor" power plants not currently in existence in
the U.S. And while John McCain mentioned reprocessing in each of the three
presidential debates, it's unlikely that President-elect Barack Obama would
actively pursue such an expensive and controversial technology.

The only S.C. politician to speak out in recent months against reprocessing
is Rep. John Spratt. He suspects that SRS would likely emerge as a top
location if it's pursued, but believes the cost and waste disposal problems
will end the debate for now. Spratt also points out the proliferation risks
of reprocessing - the reason it was ceased nearly four decades ago.

"In truth, it develops more plutonium-239, which is weapons-ready and
doesn't have the disadvantage of being so radioactive that it can't be
handled, " says Spratt. He says he's not opposed to exploring the
possibilities if new technologies arise, but suspects pursuing reprocessing
before waste disposal is in place is like putting the cart before the horse.

A mere 20 pounds of plutonium is needed to make a nuclear bomb, and with
commercial facilities handling large amounts, Friends of the Earth's
Clements worries that even if we controlled the substance in the U.S., we'd
be sending the wrong message to other countries considering reprocessing.

Gov. Mark Sanford's Climate, Energy, and Commerce Advisory Committee issued
a statement this year tepidly supporting reprocessing, but only if an
evaluation shows it to be cost-effective. It clarifies the committee's
support as "contingent on a plan for the shipment of the waste out of state
to an operating facility that is actively receiving nuclear waste for
long-term disposal."

Anywhere a nuclear waste facility or storage site is proposed, there's bound
to be a heavy dose of not-in-my-backyard bellowing. But SRS has been housing
nukes in our backyard for decades, and there may be enough supporters with
split atoms in their eyes to keep them coming for decades more.

Public comment on a nuclear reprocessing plant in S.C. will be taken until Dec. 16. E-mail [email protected].