THE GLOBAL NUCLEAR ENERGY PARTNERSHIP

Abstract

Since the dawn of the atomic age, the United States has sought to encourage the use of nuclear energy while minimizing the proliferation risks associated with it. The latest U.S. initiative that sets out to accomplish this is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which, in its current form, potentially includes the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies around the globe. This article examines the concerns surrounding the proliferation of these technologies and surveys their history both domestically and internationally. In identifying these concerns, the author argues that GNEP needs to be considered in the context of the Atoms for Peace program; that it erodes the successful thirty-year U.S. position against reprocessing; and that it allows for the spread of technologies that are not proliferation-resistant.

Keywords:

• Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
• nuclear proliferation
• United States

Announced by the George W. Bush administration, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) seeks to encourage the forecasted “nuclear renaissance” and address nuclear waste concerns, while at the same time minimizing the proliferation risks associated with the spread of sensitive nuclear technology. The difficulty the initiative faces is the dual-use nature of nuclear technology: although it can be used for peaceful purposes, it can also produce material that could be used or readily adapted for use in nuclear weapons. Balancing the competing interests of nonproliferation and energy independence may fall on a razor's edge.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman formally unveiled GNEP on February 6, 2006 as a part of the newly announced Advanced Energy Initiative.1 Since then, the details surrounding GNEP have frequently changed as plans have evolved, but the broader goal of expanding nuclear energy worldwide while minimizing proliferation concerns has remained the same.

Background

According to a January 2007 Department of Energy (DOE) report, GNEP “seeks to bring about a significant, wide-scale use of nuclear energy, and to take actions now that will allow that vision to be achieved while decreasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and effectively addressing the challenge of nuclear waste disposal.”2 Significantly, the report also asserts that the initiative “will advance the nonproliferation and national security interests of the United States by reinforcing its nonproliferation policies and reducing the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies, and eventually eliminating excess civilian plutonium stocks that have accumulated.”

In order to achieve its goal of expanding nuclear energy worldwide, the report outlines a number of GNEP objectives, including:

• Develop, demonstrate, and deploy technologies for “recycling” spent nuclear fuel that do not separate plutonium to reduce and simplify waste disposal.

• Develop, demonstrate, and deploy advanced reactors that consume transuranics from recycled spent fuel.

• Arrange supply chains to provide reliable, worldwide fuel services by providing nuclear fuel and taking back spent fuel—without disseminating enrichment and reprocessing technologies.

• Develop, demonstrate, and deploy advanced, proliferation-resistant nuclear power reactors in developing countries and regions.

• In cooperation with the IAEA, develop enhanced nuclear safeguards to watch over nuclear materials and facilities, ensuring that they are used only for peaceful uses.3

Under the original vision of GNEP unveiled by Bodman, partner countries would provide fresh nuclear fuel to developing countries as a part of a fuel services program in exchange for a commitment by the developing countries to forgo pursuing their own enrichment and reprocessing activities.4 This practice would have been consistent with President Bush's February 2004 proposal that members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group “refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technologies to any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.”5

Significantly, however, GNEP no longer includes any restrictions of the sort. At the urging of the United States, fifteen countries joined it in signing the GNEP Statement of Principles in September 2007, and as of November 2008 nine more had followed suit, for a total of twenty-five partner countries. The statement promotes the development and deployment of advanced fuel cycle technologies but does not contain any commitment on the part of its members to limit their spread.6 Indeed, the statement makes the explicit point that GNEP partner countries “would not give up any rights.”7 Though not expressly enumerated, the countries that pressed for the inclusion of this language—including Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Ukraine—noted that they would not relinquish their rights to possess enrichment facilities.8 Other countries, such as South Korea, have recently expressed interest in acquiring a reprocessing plant.

Moreover, this departure came only months after the United States reversed its previous position of opposing other countries’ indefinite continued use of plutonium-uranium extraction (PUREX), which separates pure plutonium from spent nuclear fuel.9 This decision is at odds with previous administration proclamations on the matter, including Bodman's November 2005 statement that, “in addressing reprocessing—or recycling—technologies for dealing with spent fuel, we are guided by one overarching goal: to seek a global norm of no separated plutonium.”10

As referenced above, DOE identifies three facilities required to implement GNEP.11 They include: a consolidated fuel treatment center (also referred to by DOE officials as “a nuclear fuel recycling center”) to separate the components of spent fuel; an advanced burner reactor (or “advanced recycling reactor”) to “burn,” or transmute, the fuel in a way that makes actinides easier to store as waste, while also producing electricity; and an advanced fuel cycle facility to serve as an R&D center for developing transmutation fuels and improving fuel cycle technology. The consolidated fuel treatment center would also include transuranic fuel fabrication facilities to produce the fuel for the advanced burner reactor.

The DOE envisioned the deployment of the consolidated fuel treatment center and advanced burner reactor facilities in the near term.12 The fuel treatment center would include a variant of PUREX known as uranium extraction plus (UREX+) for reprocessing spent fuel, although this is no longer a near-term consideration. Department officials originally sought to demonstrate UREX+ by building an engineering-scale facility, but the technology was not ready for deployment. DOE instead decided to skip the demonstration step and seek industry proposals to construct a commercial-scale plant capable of reprocessing at least 2,000 tons of spent fuel per year, or approximately the amount discharged annually by U.S. power reactors. Likely to be built at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the facility would be the world's largest reprocessing plant—far larger than Japan's recently completed Rokkasho plant—and cost at least $20 billion.13 Additionally, GNEP may require one to three advanced burner reactors for every conventional light water reactor in operation, each costing several billion dollars apiece.14

These high costs, among other reasons, have led to tepid (at best) support for GNEP from the nuclear industry. A June 2007 report prepared by the Keystone Center and largely paid for by the industry's policy arm, the Nuclear Energy Institute, and its members, concluded that the initiative “is not a credible strategy for resolving either the radioactive waste or proliferation problem.”15 In citing why the “critical elements of GNEP are unlikely to succeed,” the report notes that the program requires the deployment of commercial-scale reprocessing plants and a large proportion of commercial reactors in the United States and abroad to be fast reactors. However, the report continues, the deployment of commercial reprocessing plants has been uneconomical, while fast reactors have been both uneconomical and significantly less reliable than conventional light water reactors.16 Not surprisingly, the nuclear industry has not committed any funding to either of these technologies.17

The DOE is also pushing to continue research and development in order to complete the development of advanced spent fuel separation techniques and transmutation fuel fabrication technologies.18 One separation technique being examined is pyroprocessing, a “dry” form of reprocessing that is designed to treat metal fuel for liquid sodium–cooled fast reactors. This type of reactor is being developed by the United States as a member of the Generation IV International Forum (GIF), a collaborative effort that seeks to have the “next generation” of nuclear energy systems available for international deployment by approximately 2030.19 The other “Gen IV” fast reactor designs that are being explored by other GIF partners are gas-cooled fast reactors and lead-cooled fast reactors, although supercritical water-cooled reactors could also be built as fast reactors for use in a closed fuel cycle.20 Including epithermal molten salt reactors, each system would require reprocessing—no doubt a point not lost on DOE officials promoting GNEP.

Concerns about Reprocessing Technologies and Advanced Burner Reactors

Reprocessing was originally developed by the United States during the Manhattan Project to extract plutonium from spent nuclear fuel for use in nuclear weapons. The earliest process used bismuth phosphate, but its inability to also recover uranium led the United States to develop PUREX shortly after World War II. This method entails chopping up spent fuel rods, dissolving them in nitric acid, and then mixing in an organic solvent to separate the plutonium and uranium from the fission products (such as cesium-137 and strontium-90) and the minor transuranics (such as americium, curium, and neptunium).21 Further steps would allow the plutonium and uranium to be separated from one another. As high-level waste, the fission products and transuranics are vitrified, or mixed into glass, and stored. The separated plutonium can be combined with uranium to create mixed oxide (MOX) fuel for use in certain power reactors. Alternatively, however, it can also be used to produce nuclear weapons, raising serious concerns about nuclear proliferation.22

The dual-use nature of PUREX has led the United States to pursue more proliferation-resistant reprocessing technologies, a task energized by GNEP in recent years but dating back decades. According to one count, thirty-two different reprocessing techniques had been proposed in scientific literature by 1977.23 Notably, the Energy Research and Development Administration (which would be combined with the Federal Energy Administration to form the DOE) favored coprocessing, a PUREX variant that would separate out fission products and produce a mixture of plutonium and uranium. As noted by observers at the time, “If the uranium-plutonium mixture produced by coprocessing were diverted for weapons, a chemical separation would be needed to get pure plutonium. However, the chemical separation would be simpler than reprocessing because the uranium-plutonium mixture would be largely decontaminated.”24

Coprocessing, now called COEX (co-extraction of plutonium and uranium), is being considered by the DOE for use in GNEP.25 A recent Argonne National Laboratory report, however, acknowledged that referring to COEX as “proliferation resistant” is “debatable” for the same reason known in 1977. Others have pointed out that the plutonium-uranium mixture derived from COEX, even unseparated, would actually be directly weapons-usable.26

The following year, another PUREX variant named CIVEX was introduced. The process would separate out some uranium for use in a breeder reactor as well as a mixture of plutonium, uranium, fission products, and transuranics. The rationale for the inclusion of some high-level waste in the mix (including cesium-137) was to make it so intensely radioactive that the material could not be handled directly by humans, thereby preventing terrorist theft. Advocates of CIVEX at the time claimed that including this waste and maintaining a plutonium-uranium ratio of roughly one to four, “represent the key[s] to the inherent invulnerability of the process to sudden diversion.”27 The General Accounting Office, however, reviewed CIVEX and similar processes and determined that while they would provide enhanced protection against terrorist theft, they would have little impact on diversion by states.28

The DOE is currently pushing for the deployment UREX+, a set of processes similar to CIVEX, as a part of GNEP. Also a variant of PUREX, UREX+ extracts uranium and fission products and transuranics in various combinations. The idea is that by separating out the fission products (mainly cesium and strontium) and storing them aboveground, they would lose their heat as they decay over several hundred years, thereby effectively increasing the storage capacity of the geologic repository where the remaining nuclear waste would be stored. However, for any of the UREX+ variations, the plutonium would only be contaminated with a modest amount of transuranics, so that a state or terrorist group would only need to reprocess 11 kilograms (kg) of material in order to obtain the 10 kg of plutonium necessary to make a nuclear weapon. By contrast, 1,000 kg of highly radioactive conventional spent fuel would be needed to obtain the same amount.29

Dubbed UREX+2, the first version of UREX+ proposed by Argonne would keep the plutonium mixed with neptunium.30 Neptunium, however, is relatively scarce in spent fuel compared to plutonium, is less radioactive than plutonium, and is weapons-grade material. Like its COEX-cousin, a plutonium-neptunium mix could be used directly in a nuclear weapon, or the plutonium could be extracted using a simple chemical separation.

A second version proposed by the DOE in May 2006 called UREX+1a would leave all the transuranics unseparated, although plutonium would still make up more than 80 percent of the mix.31 Despite being more than 100 times more radioactive than pure plutonium, the resulting mix would still only produce about 0.1 percent of the penetrating radiation required to make it “self protecting” under IAEA standards. In fact, enough plutonium for a number of nuclear weapons could be separated before the workers or terrorists received a significant dose of radiation.

In response to criticism about UREX+1a's lack of proliferation resistance, Argonne proposed a third version, referred to as UREX+1, in which the lanthanides, a type of fission product, would remain with the transuranics until the mix was transported to a sodium-cooled advanced burner reactor site.32 The penetrating radiation level of the mix would be higher than the other UREX+ variants, but would still not meet the IAEA's self-protection standard. Each advanced burner reactor site would require its own final-stage reprocessing and fuel-fabrication plant to remove the lanthanides, further increasing the already high cost of the separation and transmutation approach of GNEP and making the process exceedingly complex and cumbersome.

Another reprocessing technology that the DOE is considering for use in GNEP is pyroprocessing. The process was originally part of the Integrated Fast Reactor development program by Argonne, which sought to integrate a reprocessing and fuel-recycle plant at each reactor facility.33 It was developed to minimize the amount of liquid waste produced during the UREX process when preparing the metal fuel for a small experimental breeder reactor that is currently being decommissioned.34 Notably, pyrometallurgical methods were considered to be one of a small number of processes that held the most promise over years ago.35

In pyroprocessing, chopped up spent metal fuel is submerged in molten salt and subjected to an electric current, which allows for the collection of a mix of plutonium, uranium, transuranics, and some fission products at a cathode.36 The ability to separate the transuranics and fission products with sufficient purity, however, is still a concern for Argonne officials.37 And like UREX+2 and UREX+1a, pyroprocessing would not create enough penetrating radiation required to make it self-protecting under IAEA standards. More troubling is that a study prepared for the DOE and the State Department in 1992 revealed a number of ways that a pyroprocessing plant could be used to make relatively pure plutonium.38

The reprocessed spent fuel produced by one of the aforementioned separation technologies, such as pyroprocessing, would then be fed into an advanced burner reactor (also currently being developed by the DOE as a part of GNEP). These reactors are actually a variation of earlier breeder reactors with the uranium “blanket” removed to allow the fast neutrons to split apart the transuranics into shorter-lived isotopes while also producing electricity.39

Funding Levels

The Bush administration requested $250 million for GNEP in fiscal 2007, but Congress provided only $167 million. For fiscal 2008, Bush requested $395 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI), the technology arm of GNEP. Considering it too aggressive a program, Congress slashed approved funding to $179 million, the majority of which was slated for continued R&D on reprocessing and advanced reactor design. Congress also barred the use of funds for “facility construction for technology demonstration or commercialization,” effectively blocking DOE's plans to build reprocessing and fast reactor commercial-scale demonstration facilities. Members of Congress in both the House and Senate have expressed concerns about cost, proliferation risks, and lack of industry support.40 While the Bush administration nevertheless requested a hefty $302 million for AFCI for fiscal 2009, it did appear to acknowledge the concerns of Congress by delaying site selection for the construction of a commercial-scale reprocessing plant and a fast reactor and instead only asking for funds for R&D.41

History of Reprocessing and Fast Reactors: United States

Commercial reprocessing has been tried in the United States three times with little success. The first plant, built in West Valley, New York, was shut down in 1972 after reprocessing a single year's worth of spent fuel (640 metric tons) in its six years of operation. The DOE is spending $4.5 billion to clean up the site.42 A second plant in Morris, Illinois, was deemed inoperable in 1974 due to design errors.43 It is currently serving as an interim storage facility, holding more than six hundred tons of spent fuel.44 A third plant built in Barnwell, South Carolina, was also never operational.45 The DOE has also been spending several billion dollars annually for over a decade to clean up the military reprocessing plants at Hanford in Washington and at Savannah River in South Carolina, so far with little progress.46

The U.S. policy toward reprocessing, both domestically and internationally, drastically changed as a result of India's nuclear test in June 1974. The United States was distressed to learn that the reprocessing technology that it had transferred to India for peaceful purposes had been used to separate the plutonium used in the nuclear device. The Ford administration shifted the U.S. position in late 1976, calling for a three-year moratorium on the transfer of sensitive nuclear technologies, including reprocessing technologies. In halting reprocessing domestically, Gerald Ford declared that the United States would “no longer regard reprocessing of used nuclear fuel to produce plutonium as a necessary and inevitable step in the nuclear fuel cycle.”47 Notably, the president also directed the Energy Research and Development Administration to demonstrate the feasibility of all components of nuclear waste technology by 1978 so that an adequate repository for nuclear wastes could be completed by 1985.48

Following a review upon entering office in 1977, the Carter administration indefinitely extended the Ford administration's moratorium on reprocessing and halted the licensing process for the plant being built in Barnwell.49 The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978 was passed to codify controls over sensitive nuclear technologies. The president also concluded that both reprocessing and breeder reactors would not be economic for the foreseeable future. He received strong support from a Ford Foundation report that questioned the economic benefit of the reprocessing and warned that proceeding with it “would accelerate world-wide interest in the plutonium fuel cycle and undercut efforts to limit nuclear weapons proliferation.”50

The Reagan administration reversed the ban on commercial reprocessing in the United States but emphasized that the private sector should “take the lead in developing commercial reprocessing services.”51 Ronald Reagan, however, found that despite their previous protests, the nuclear utilities were no longer interested in reprocessing due to its high costs. Instead, the utilities invited the federal government to assume responsibility for disposing of their spent fuel.52 Congress soon passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 that tasked the DOE with taking care of the waste in exchange for a tax of 0.1 cent per kilowatt hour of nuclear-generated electricity. Five years later, Congress selected the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada to be the country's first geologic repository to hold spent nuclear fuel.

The incoming Clinton administration restored the U.S. policy of opposition to reprocessing in 1993 and moved to terminate its research and development. Bill Clinton did not, however, reverse the Reagan administration's commitment to not interfere with reprocessing programs in Western Europe and Japan.53

Originally scheduled to open in 1998, Yucca Mountain has been beset by a number of delays. Most recently, a federal appeals court ruled in 2004 that the repository must be designed to limit radiation to the public for more than 10,000 years.54 The repository is legislatively limited by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act as Amended, which “prohibit[s] the emplacement in the first repository of a quantity of spent fuel containing in excess of 70,000 metric tons of heavy metal or a quantity of solidified high-level radioactive waste resulting from the reprocessing of such a quantity of spent fuel until such time as a second repository is in operation.”55 Of this total, 7,000 metric tons are believed to be slated for defense-related nuclear waste, leaving some 63,000 metric tons for commercial waste. The current generation of power reactors in the United States had produced 62,000 metric tons of waste by the end of 2008, and the DOE expects these reactors to discharge approximately twice as much waste during their operational lifetimes.56 Though the exact figure is hotly contested, the overall amount of waste produced by current reactors over their lifetimes would still be well below most estimates of Yucca Mountain's physical capacity.57

The physical capacity of Yucca Mountain to store nuclear waste is limited by the intensity of the heat of the spent fuel. The bulk of this heat would come from the decay of transuranics, namely americium-241, which has a 432-year half-life. Were the transuranics removed, the repository could hold the fission products from five times as much spent fuel before temperature became an issue. And were the thirty-year half-life fission products of cesium-137 and strontium-90 separated and stored aboveground, the remaining fission products from as much as 100 times the spent fuel could be stored in Yucca Mountain.58

In the meantime, spent fuel continues to pile up at nuclear power plants across the country. Plant operators are buying on-site dry casks to store the waste, and many utilities are taking legal action against the federal government to recoup the costs. More than half of the spent fuel ponds at the reactors are at their capacity, meaning that nearly every reactor will require dry cask storage within a few years, based on DOE figures.59 However, as a May 2005 American Physical Society study points out, “Even though Yucca Mountain may be delayed considerably, interim storage of spent fuel in dry cask, either at current sites, or at a few regional facilities, or at a single national facility, is safe and affordable for a period of at least 50 years.”60 In contrast, the DOE recently released a revised estimate for the total life cycle cost of Yucca Mountain, from the beginning of the program in 1983 through its closure and decommissioning in 2133—$96.2 billion.61

Yucca Mountain is currently expected to open in 2020 at the earliest, if ever. Nevertheless, even if the repository does open, domestic politics makes it highly unlikely that the United States would ever accept foreign spent fuel for either storage or reprocessing. Furthermore, no other GNEP partner has agreed to either task as well, significantly undercutting a key element of GNEP.

Under the belief that the Ford and Carter administrations made the wrong choice decades ago to halt reprocessing domestically and that the delays at Yucca Mountain could threaten the much-heralded “nuclear renaissance,” the Bush administration reignited interest in commercial reprocessing. The first inkling of this policy shift came from the May 2001 report prepared by a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Among its other recommendations, the report suggested that, “The United States should reexamine its policies to allow for research, development, and deployment of [nuclear] fuel conditioning methods (such as pyroprocessing) that reduce waste streams and enhance proliferation resistance.”62 The report foreshadowed many Bush administration policies toward reprocessing, including the promotion of GNEP.

International History

The use of reprocessing technologies internationally has been closely linked with its use by the United States. In December 1953, Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace program, which sought to spread nuclear technology and know-how for peaceful purposes throughout the world. Under this initiative, the United States declassified PUREX and related technologies and encouraged others to master them.63 During the 1960s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, led by Glenn Seaborg, promoted reprocessing to other countries as a means to separate plutonium for use as fuel in nuclear power reactors. He predicted that liquid sodium–cooled plutonium breeder reactors would be deployed worldwide in sufficient numbers to produce enough fuel for thousands of these reactors.64 As noted above, the U.S. policy of actively promoting reprocessing abroad, however, came to a screeching halt following India's 1974 nuclear test. Since then, it has largely had the intended effect of arresting the expansion of reprocessing to countries that did not already possess the technology.

Meanwhile, nuclear utilities in Western Europe and Japan in the 1970s began shipping their spent fuel to France and the United Kingdom for reprocessing.65 But domestic politics prevented these countries from permanently keeping the high-level waste produced by reprocessing foreign spent fuel, requiring both the separated plutonium and the waste to be shipped back to the country of origin. Consequently, the customer countries had to site and build storage facilities domestically, even after paying ten times the amount for reprocessing the spent fuel than it would have cost to simply store it in the first place.66

The Soviet Union instituted a similar arrangement with Eastern European countries that it had supplied with fresh nuclear fuel and reprocessed some of it. But unlike France and the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union agreed to dispose of the waste that resulted from reprocessing. Russia, however, recently changed this policy to also require the repatriation of high-level waste back to its country of origin. It has also indicated that it will no longer accept spent fuel from other countries, unless it had supplied the fuel or the reactors.67

The economic realities of separating and storing nuclear waste have forced a number of countries to reevaluate their reprocessing policy. In fact, thirteen of fourteen customer countries decided not to renew reprocessing contracts with France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. Of these, twelve decided on interim storage, while Japan alone decided to build its own reprocessing facility on the grounds that if spent fuel was not removed from its power plants, they would be forced to shut down.68 The plant took twelve years to build and cost $20 billion, more than three times the initial estimate. Of particular concern is that a July 2003 MIT study that found that reprocessing by both the nuclear weapon states of France and Russia and the non-nuclear weapon state of Japan did not provide sufficient safeguards against proliferation.69

Following the loss of all of its customers, the United Kingdom recently decided to end reprocessing. Its government-owned THORP facility at Sellafield was slated to shut down in 2010, but was instead forced to close in 2005 after an accident caused the leak of 20 metric tons of uranium and plutonium. The plant had been losing money even when it was operational. And while France plans to keep its facilities open, a July 2000 report by the French government concluded that even treating the initial capital costs of its reprocessing and MOX fuel fabrication plants as sunk, the country would save $4 billion to $5 billion over the remaining lifetime of its current fleet of power reactors if it were to stop reprocessing by 2010.70

With the departure of the United Kingdom, only China, France, India, Japan, and Russia will operate reprocessing facilities.71 Though it does not currently possess a reprocessing plant, China is building a pilot-scale plant and is in negotiations with France to build a full-scale facility. In contrast, Belgium, Germany, and Italy have all closed their pilot-scale reprocessing plants. It should be noted, however, that South Korea and the United States are jointly undertaking pyroprocessing R&D.72

During the 1960s and 1970s, industrialized countries sought the commercialization of sodium-cooled fast neutron reactors as breeder reactors.73 But these reactors were soon found to be considerably more costly and difficult to maintain than conventional water-cooled reactors, and the urgency to build them flagged when the price of natural uranium declined as a result of the discovery of major new deposits. The United States sought to build a demonstration fast reactor at Clinch River, Tennessee in the 1970s, but Congress canceled the project in 1983 after the estimated cost grew from $700 million to more than $4 billion.74 France, Germany, and the United Kingdom also built fast reactors, only to abandon them shortly thereafter for being too costly and difficult.75

In all, seven of the ten experimental four of the five demonstration or prototype fast reacters, the one commercial-scale fast reactor, and, fast reactors that were built and operated have now been shut down.76 Several others were canceled during or after construction. India, Japan, and Russia continue to operate experimental fast reactors, while China is mid-construction; only Japan continues to operate a demonstration or prototype fast reactor, while India is mid-construction; and Russia alone is in the process of constructing a commercial-scale fast reactor.

Major Proliferation Concerns

As demonstrated above, there are a number of serious nonproliferation concerns surrounding GNEP. When considering these concerns, however, it is important to place the initiative firmly in the context of Atoms for Peace. Retrospectively, it is clear that the program was overly ambitious and did not thoroughly consider the various possibilities of misuse. The results of this miscalculation were severe. To varying degrees, the Atoms for Peace program directly assisted the nuclear weapons programs of India, Israel, and Pakistan. It also indirectly contributed to North Korea's program, considering that Ch'oe Hak Kŭn, the country's representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) during the late 1970s, is believed to have copied materials related to the design of nuclear reactors and technologies from the library of the IAEA, an organization established to fulfill Eisenhower's vision.77 When evaluating GNEP, which may spread technology that would produce material that could be used or readily adapted for use in nuclear weapons, it is therefore essential to remain keenly aware of the potential misuse and to plan accordingly.

Reversal of Thirty Years against Reprocessing

GNEP also weakens the nuclear nonproliferation regime by reversing the thirty-year-old U.S. position against reprocessing. More than three decades ago, a Ford Foundation panel warned President Jimmy Carter that resuming reprocessing would hasten interest in the plutonium fuel cycle and undercut nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Fortunately, Carter heeded this warning and reconfirmed Ford's rejection of reprocessing both domestically and internationally. This policy successfully matched word and deed, and has demonstrated to the world that reprocessing is not an essential element of the nuclear fuel cycle.

It is important to remember that no country that did not possess reprocessing technologies in 1974 has since acquired them. The Ford and Carter administrations successfully pressed France and Germany to cancel the contracts under which they were sending reprocessing technology to Pakistan, South Korea, and Brazil.78 The United States also successfully pressured Taiwan to not develop a reprocessing plant.79 Further still, five other countries that either operated or had plans to build civil reprocessing plants in the 1970s ceased their efforts: Argentina, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, and West Germany.80 The only transfer of reprocessing technology after 1974 was to Japan (which possessed a pilot-scale plant at the time), and that came after the country's prime minister asserted that reprocessing was a “life or death issue.” To this day, Japan remains the only non-weapon state that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel.81

Were the United States to begin reprocessing again, not only would it break this thirty-year-old legacy of success, but it would encourage others to break with this past as well. The irony, of course, is that its own policies would shatter the norm that it created. Countries such as South Korea, with which the United States is already working closely to develop pyroprocessing and which looks enviously at Japan's reprocessing program, would strongly consider following suit. And perhaps most problematic, any moral authority that the United States may have to insist that countries such as Iran need not pursue the complete nuclear cycle would be immediately lost.

Allows Spread of Technologies That Are Not Proliferation-Resistant

Beyond weakening the nuclear nonproliferation regime, GNEP threatens to spread technology that would produce material that could be used or readily adapted for use in nuclear weapons. The two main proliferation concerns that stem from this are that the plutonium or near-plutonium mixes could be stolen by terrorists, and that countries with reprocessing plants or separated (or near-separated) plutonium could produce nuclear weapons before the international community could act.82 And, as noted in the industry-sponsored Keystone Center report, GNEP “could encourage the development of hot cells and reprocessing R&D centers in non-weapon states, as well as the training of cadres of experts in plutonium chemistry and metallurgy, all of which pose a grave proliferation risk.”83

All of the separation technologies proposed under GNEP are far from being “proliferation-resistant” and, in fact, would significantly reduce the time needed to acquire pure plutonium, even if they do not separate it out immediately. At best, the plutonium-uranium mixture derived from COEX would require a simple additional step to attain pure plutonium, and at worst could be directly weapons-usable when unseparated. The UREX+ variations, less so than their CIVEX cousin earlier, also only modestly contaminate the plutonium such that a terrorist group or state would only need to reprocess a relatively small amount in order to obtain enough plutonium necessary to make a nuclear weapon. And none of them produce blends that meet the IAEA's self-protection standard. The same holds true for pyroprocessing, the facilities for which could also be reconfigured to make relatively pure plutonium. The proliferation resistance of all of these proposed separation techniques differs significantly with the once-through cycle under which pure plutonium is very difficult to obtain and the process of developing nuclear weapons significantly hindered.

Conclusion

In sharp contrast to its stated goals, GNEP will not solve the problems associated with nuclear waste disposal and may actually increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. The initiative has already sparked a newfound interest in a number of countries to acquire sensitive nuclear technologies, while doing little to restrict the spread of such technologies from partner countries that already possess them. And despite the “proliferation-resistant” label, all of the reprocessing technologies proposed under GNEP would actually make a proliferator's task comparatively easier.

The resumption of reprocessing domestically under GNEP would also likely have a long-lasting and detrimental impact on the nonproliferation regime. Breaking with its thirty-year position that has successfully limited the spread of reprocessing technologies around the globe would significantly hinder the ability of the United States to challenge the claim by other countries of the necessity of reprocessing. Combined with the softening of rules governing nuclear trade, this reversal threatens to further weaken the nuclear nonproliferation regime, with potentially disastrous consequences.

More than five decades ago, the United States launched an ambitious program to spread nuclear technology and knowledge for peaceful purposes throughout the world. Despite its best intentions, the program did not adequately weigh the various possibilities for misuse and consequently contributed to the nuclear weapons programs of several countries. As the United States today considers pursuing a program of comparable vigor, it must remember the lessons learned from the Atoms for Peace experience and realize that greater risk does not necessarily always yield greater reward.

Notes

1. U.S. Department of Energy, “Department of Energy Announces New Nuclear Initiative,” February 6, 2006; George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address by the President,” January 31, 2006.

2. DOE, Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Fuel Cycle Management, “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Strategic Plan,” January 2007, p. 1.

3. DOE, Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Fuel Cycle Management, “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Strategic Plan,” January 2007., pp. 1–2.

4. DOE, “Department of Energy Announces New Nuclear Initiative.”

5. George W. Bush, “President Announces New Measures to Counter the Threat of WMD,” February 11, 2004.

6. Edwin Lyman and Frank N. von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited: The International Dimensions of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership,” Arms Control Today 38 (April 2008), p. 6.

7. DOE, “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Statement of Principles,” September 16, 2007.

8. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 11.

9. “On GNEP and Nuclear Cooperation, Interview with French CEA Chairman Alain Bugat,” Nuclear Fuel Cycle Monitor 26 (June 4, 2007), as cited in Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 13.

10. Samuel Bodman, “Remarks Prepared for Secretary of Energy Sam Bodman” (emphasis in original), speech at the 2005 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference, Washington, DC, November 7, 2005, p. 7.

11. DOE, “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Strategic Plan,” p. 6.

12. DOE, “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Strategic Plan,” p. 9.

13. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” pp. 11, 13.

14. Matthew L. Wald, “The Best Nuclear Option,” Technology Review 109 (July/August 2006), pp. 61–62.

15. “Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding,” Keystone Center, June 2007, p. 90.

16. “Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding,” Keystone Center, June 2007, p. 91.

17. Leonor Tomero, “Future of the GNEP: Domestic Stakeholders,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Online, August 14, 2008, <www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/reports/the-future-of-gnep/the-future-of-gnep-domestic-stakeholders>.

18. DOE, “Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Strategic Plan,” p. 9.

19. DOE Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee and the Generation IV International Forum, “A Technology Roadmap for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems,” December 2002, p. 5.

20. Generation IV International Forum, “Introduction to Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems and the International Forum,” April 21, 2008.

21. Steve Fetter and Frank N. von Hippel, “Is U.S. Reprocessing Worth the Risk?” Arms Control Today 35 (September 2005), p. 6.

22. Stephanie Cooke, “Just Within Reach?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (July/August 2006), p. 15.

23. William D. Metz, “Reprocessing Alternatives: The Options Multiply,” Science 196 (April 1977), p. 284.

24. Metz, “Reprocessing Alternatives: The Options Multiply,” p. 284.

25. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” pp. 8–9, 13.

26. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” pp. 13–14. Von Hippel notes that as “the critical mass of a bare sphere of the COEX product is only 5.6 times the bare critical mass of weapons-grade plutonium,” it is therefore directly weapons-usable.

27. Milton R. Copulos, “ClVEX Fuel Cycle: The Solution To Nuclear Proliferation?” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 61, August 3, 1978.

28. Edwin Lyman, “The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: Will It Advance Nonproliferation or Undermine It?” paper delivered at the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management 47th Annual Meeting, Nashville, Tennessee, July 19, 2006.

29. Cooke, “Just Within Reach?” pp. 15–17.

30. Frank von Hippel, “Managing Spent Fuel in the United States: The Illogic of Reprocessing,” International Panel on Fissile Materials, Research Report 3, January 2007, p. 21.

31. Von Hippel, “Managing Spent Fuel in the United States: The Illogic of Reprocessing,” p. 21.

32. Von Hippel, “Managing Spent Fuel in the United States: The Illogic of Reprocessing,” p. 22.

33. Frank N. von Hippel, “Plutonium and Reprocessing of Spent Fuel,” Science 293, no. 5539 (2001), p. 2398.

34. “Nuclear Waste Disposal for the Future: The Potential of Reprocessing and Recycling,” Nuclear Energy Institute, March 2006; Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

35. Metz, “Reprocessing Alternatives,” p. 284.

36. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

37. Cooke, “Just Within Reach?” p. 16.

38. R.G. Wymer et. al., “An Assessment of the Proliferation Potential and International Implications of the Integral Fast Reactor,” Martin Marietta Energy Systems Inc., Report K/ITP-511, 1992, p. 80, as cited in Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 9.

39. Cooke, “Just Within Reach?” p. 16.

40. “Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Highlights From FY2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill (S. 2764),” Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, December 21, 2007.

41. Miles A. Pomper, “Bush Calls for More GNEP, MOX Facility Funds,” Arms Control Today 38 (March 2008) pp. 34–35; Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 13.

42. “Nuclear Waste: Agreement Among Agencies Responsible for the West Valley Site is Critically Needed,” Government Accountability Office, GAO-01-314, May 11, 2001.

43. Wald, “The Best Nuclear Option,” p. 61.

44. A. Andrews, “Spent Fuel Storage Locations and Inventory,” Congressional Research Service, 2001.

45. Fetter and von Hippel, “Is U.S. Reprocessing Worth the Risk?”

46. “Nuclear Waste: Challenges to Achieving Potential Savings in DOE's High-Level Waste Cleanup Program,” Government Accountability Office report GAO-03-593, June 17, 2003; Government Accountability Office, “Nuclear Waste: Plans for Addressing Most Buried Transuranic Wastes Are Not Final, and Preliminary Cost Estimates Will Likely Increase,” GAO-07-761, June 22, 2007.

47. “Ford Announces New Nuclear Policy.” Science 110, no. 19 (1976), p. 295.

48. “Ford Announces New Nuclear Policy.” Science 110, no. 19 (1976),

49. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

50. William D. Metz, “Reprocessing: How Necessary Is It for the Near Term?” Science 196, no. 4285 (1977), p. 43.

51. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

52. Frank N. von Hippel, “No Hurry to Recycle,” Mechanical Engineering 128 (May 2006), p. 33.

53. Von Hippel, “Plutonium and Reprocessing of Spent Fuel,” p. 2397.

54. Von Hippel, “No Hurry to Recycle,” pp. 34–35.

55. Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as Amended, DOE, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. Enacted in 1982, amended in 1987.

56. Von Hippel, “No Hurry to Recycle,” pp. 34–35.

57. A June 2007 report, “Program on Technology Innovation: Room at the Mountain,” by the Electric Power Research Institute, for instance, found that four to nine times the current commercial spent nuclear fuel limit (approximately 260,000–570,000 metric tons of heavy metals) could be emplaced in Yucca Mountain with additional site characterization.

58. A June 2007 report, “Program on Technology Innovation: Room at the Mountain,” by the Electric Power Research Institute, for instance, found that four to nine times the current commercial spent nuclear fuel limit (approximately 260,000–570,000 metric tons of heavy metals) could be emplaced in Yucca Mountain with additional site characterization., p. 34. This figure supposes that Yucca Mountain was promptly sealed, although the current plan is to keep the repository convectively cooled for a period of time.

59. Allison Macfarlane, “Stuck on a Solution,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2006, p. 48.

60. Nuclear Energy Study Group, American Physical Society Panel on Public Affairs, “Nuclear Power and Proliferation Resistance: Securing Benefits, Limiting Risk,” May 2005.

61. DOE, “U.S. Department of Energy Releases Revised Total System Life Cycle Cost Estimate and Fee Adequacy Report for Yucca Mountain Project,” August 5, 2008.

62. “National Energy Policy: Report of the National Energy Policy Development Group,” May 2001, p. 85 (5-17).

63. Von Hippel, “No Hurry to Recycle.” p. 32.

64. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 7.

65. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

66. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

67. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 11.

68. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

69. “The Future of Nuclear Power,” MIT interdisciplinary study, July 2003.

70. Jean-Michel Charpin, Benjamin Dessus, and René Pellat, “Economic Forecast Study of the Nuclear Power Option,” Report to the Prime Minister of France, July 2000.

71. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

72. Despite previous statements by some U.S. government officials that pyroprocessing is not reprocessing, the director for fuel cycle research and development at the DOE, Carter Savage, acknowledged in May 2008 that pyroprocessing would be reprocessing if South Korea followed through with all of the necessary procedures. Kyle Fishman, “IAEA South Korean Concerns Resolved,” Arms Control Today 38 (July/August 2008), p. 53.

73. Von Hippel, “Plutonium and Reprocessing of Spent Fuel,” p. 2397.

74. “Comparative Analysis of Alternative Financing Plans for the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Project,” Congressional Budget Office, September 20, 1983.

75. Wald, “The Best Nuclear Option,” p. 61.

76. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), “Fast Reactor Database—2006 Update.”

77. Lee Chae Sŭng, Pukhan’ŭl Umjig'i'nŭn Technocrat [Technocrats Who Move North Korea] (Seoul: Ilbit, 1998), p. 114.

78. Frank N. von Hippel, “Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth,” Scientific American 298 (May 2008), p. 90.

79. Lyman and von Hippel, “Reprocessing Revisited,” p. 8.

80. Lyman, “The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership: Will It Advance Nonproliferation or Undermine It?”

81. Fetter and von Hippel, “Is U.S. Reprocessing Worth the Risk?”

82. Fetter and von Hippel, “Is U.S. Reprocessing Worth the Risk?”

83. “Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding,” Keystone Center, p. 91.