Radioactive Wastes and the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is being promoted as a program to bring about the expansion of world-wide nuclear energy. To meet this goal DOE proposes to significantly reduce the amount of highlevel radioactive waste for geological disposal and to reduce proliferation risks by transmuting fissionable materials into less troublesome isotopes. Crucial to the GNEP plan is using a new, unproven type of chemical reprocessing of spent fuel from power reactors in the United States and possibly other nations. Unlike direct disposal of spent nuclear fuel rods, reprocessing involves chemical separation of radioisotopes and creates multiple waste streams. It also releases large volumes of radioactivity into the environment, typically by factors of several thousand compared with nuclear reactors. DOE claims that the new reprocessing technology under development will not pose these problems.

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