Senators say GNEP (Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) Funds not assured.

The energy committee in the U.S. Senate has found "no consensus" on President Bush's international nuclear power and waste plan.

Proponents say it will be a safe way to ensure country's of various sizes and needs the use of nuclear energy and keeping the uranium enrichment capability in the hands of only a number of countries.

But those oppose it question the $405 million price tag for GNEP next fiscal year, considering the technology to be relied upon is not commercially viable yet.

ON GNEP- Hundreds turn out to hear nuclear power plant proposal for spent nuclear waste, near Roswell, NM. US Dept of Energy wants to put nuclear waste reprocessing plant there.

The owners of a hazardous waste site between Roswell and Tatum, Gandy-Marley Inc., in partnership with EnergySolutions, are receiving $1.1 million to study the site for a spent fuel recycling center. A site near Hobbs, proposed by Eddy Lea Energy Alliance, was awarded $1.5 million for a similar study.

That money was part of more than $10 million awarded by the Department of Energy for detailed site studies on 11 areas nationwide for so-called integrated spent fuel recycling facilities, which the department said would allow the nation to recycle spent nuclear fuel safely. Studies are due by May 30.

The recycling centers are part of President Bush's proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which seeks to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.

I wonder-does this mean, basically, that tne nuclear waste would be dumped there WHILE the Dept of Energy (or some entity) is doing a study to try to figure out HOW to recycle it?  Here's a hilarious comment... and the audience thought so, too.

"I've been all over that land," Roswell resident Todd Waggoner said. "I don't think (the plant) would harm it. I think it'd probably enhance it," a remark that drew chuckles from the audience

They asked why the centers weren't being built where the nuclear waste is produced, how much water it would use and how long it would store highly spent radioactive fuel rods. Others expressed concern about toxic by-products; one questioned whether leaders are compromising the environment to reap economic benefits.

That's absolutely what I believe, too. Right now, nuclear waste is being stored at the nuclear power plant site.. because no one else wants it. Bush has tried to pretty up the nuclear waste package by including funds for GNEP and calling these dumping sites "Nuclear Waste Reprocessing Centers".

"We're a cash-strapped community. We shouldn't compromise our futures because we're in dire straits," said Aldo Carrasco, a graduate of Dexter High School and the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell.

Retiree John Popham said the potential for disaster outweighs the benefits.

"Just because we need jobs ... doesn't mean we should accept anything that comes along," he said.

In reading some more about GNEP, attempting to reprocess spent nuclear fuel is not only costly, but dangerous. And *reprocessing* doesn't do away with the need to store it in a safe geological formation.

"The main problem is cost," said Steve Fetter, professor and dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. "It is expensive to reprocess nuclear fuel."
      Fetter, interviewed by telephone, said new uranium is relatively cheap, and plutonium from reprocessing is far more expensive to use in nuclear fuel. With reprocessing, he said, the product has "negative economic value."
      To fabricate the uranium and plutonium from reprocessing and use them in fuel is difficult "because plutonium is hazardous. It requires special equipment, a special facility that's very expensive."
      Even if the plutonium were free, he said, the cost of using this reprocessed fuel would be greater than buying fresh uranium for the plants...

According to von Hippel, "We're talking in the ballpark of $100 billion for reprocessing and recycling," as well as preparing material for storage. That is the waste already generated, not counting future waste, he said.
      "That's probably the low end of the range," von Hippel added.
"Reprocessing absolutely does not relieve the need for a geologic repository," said Vanessa Pierce, program director for the Salt Lake City-based activist group Healthy Environmental Alliance of Utah. Reprocessing is not really recycling, she said.
      The resulting volume of waste is less, Pierce said, "but that's irrelevant" to the question of whether a repository is needed. The capacity of the government's planned repository at Yucca Mountain is not limited because of the size of the waste containers but by the need to control heat generated by the highly radioactive material, she said.
      Even though reprocessing reduces the bulk of the waste to be stored, the material that is left, which is not usable in power plants, still generates significant heat, Pierce said.
      "You still need almost the same amount of space even though you've got a smaller volume of waste. So it does virtually nothing to solve our need for a geological repository."

EU survey shows 61% of European Union citizens want less nuclear energy-concerns about

Barnwell, SC residents upset that their low-level nuclear dump may be closed soon. (Chem-Nuclear)

The landfill was last cited by state environmental regulators in 1983 for improperly unloading a shipment. In 1999, tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, was found on the grounds of a church next to the landfill. The levels were below those accepted by regulators, but the company dug up and replaced the contaminated soil.

A year later, then-Gov. Jim Hodges led a campaign to wean South Carolina off radioactive waste. From about 120 miles away, residents of wealthier Beaufort and Hilton Head, which get drinking water from the Savannah River, added to the outcry. State lawmakers passed a measure to slowly choke off the amount of waste that could be sent to the landfill.

This year, the cap is 40,000 cubic feet of waste, or enough to cover a baseball infield to a depth of 5 feet.

Plant manager Jim Lathan said restricting the waste to South Carolina, Connecticut and New Jersey means the landfill will run a deficit and will probably have to lay off some of the 51 workers who are left.

You see this? Other places that don't want the waste themselves come dump in Barnwell. The rationale for this one rural, low-income community is that they need the jobs, so they'll put up with crap. You'll notice in the article that *wealthier* communities don't want it-and I doubt they'd be dumping radioactive waste at Hilton Head.

Even though more than 500 gallons of radioactive water leaked at a Czech nuclear power plant, it didn't contaminate the environment. (Temelin plant)

Yeah. Right.

Who Loves China, Baby? Westinghouse/Shaw!-Will provide 4 AP1000 nuclear power plants to China. What I didn't realize is that Westinghouse Corp is mostly owned by TOSHIBA.

Westinghouse, owned 77% by Toshiba Corporation, 20% by Shaw and 3% by Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd of Japan, is the world's pioneering nuclear power company and a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world. Today, Westinghouse technology forms the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including 60% of those in the United States

Get that? Toshiba. Here's another interesting article. Toshiba is in talks to sell COAL-FIRED PLANTS to India! I didn't realize that, first, Westinghouse is no longer an American company and second, that Toshiba is in the ENERGY business.

Idaho getting a nuclear power plant.. by a company, Alternate Energy that has NEVER BUILT ONE. And neither has Amarillo Power, who wants to build one...in Texas.

Amarillo Power is the brain child of Amarillo, Texas, developer George Chapman, who is attempting to bring an estimated $5 billion nuclear power plant to that part of the country.

Attempts to contact Chapman were unsuccessful.

Like Alternate Energy, Amarillo Power has never built a nuclear power plant.

Stephanie Coffin, branch manager for the NRC Office of New Reactors, said Amarillo Power is the only company to file with the NRC that isn’t currently operating a nuclear power plant. Alternate Energy is awaiting the geologists report on the Idaho property before it files.