About That GNEP
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In response to yesterday’s Why GNEP Can’t Jump To The Future, Hal Pawlowski writes:
Forwarded the article by Robert Alvarez to my daughter who holds a post doc position at Los Alamos Nuclear Labs for comment. FYI she is exploring a career in the nuclear energy field as she feels (as I do) it is the only logical answer to our growing energy needs. Let me copy her comments here as I think them particularly on the mark:
Dad,
Honestly, I think some of his points have value; however, he is a highly suspect source. His organization is a leftist “think tank,” which, like more leftist groups, will fight against nuclear energy no matter how well-conceived the research and development is. Unfortunately, I feel that GNEP has not been carefully thought out. Nuclear energy has enormous potential but, even three years after its conception, GNEP remains somewhat ill-defined in its implementation. I like the ideas behind it, but the necessary scientific research doesn’t seem to have much structure.
He is wrong about recycling being unproven. France is doing it right now. He is wrong about the breeder reactor technology being unproven. They existed before the U.S. nuclear energy program took a major dive after Chernobyl, and they still exist elsewhere in the world. I think GNEP has a lot of potential, but I believe scientists are fighting for GNEP money to fund their pet projects as opposed to selecting a very narrow cross-section of the best ideas and funding only those. I am hoping to get involved enough to help narrow the focus of the scientific research involving the development of Gen. IV reactors and the advanced fuel cycle in the U.S. before the currently substantiated criticisms of the program kill it.
Nuclear energy has enormous potential, and the advanced fuel cycle has the ability to practically eliminate high-level radioactive waste concerns. And this technology could be brought on line within a decade to utilize the used fuel we already have before Yucca even opens. The designs for such advanced burn reactors exist and, with concentrated effort, such reactors could be constructed and become operational relatively quickly. Again, though, GNEP is not very focused. It has the potential to become a financial black hole. Alvarez’s focus on the wastes, however, destroys much of his credibility for me. He is exploiting a “hot button” to frighten people with a concern that isn’t nearly as bad as people fear it is. ALL nuclear wastes are still being stored on site at the plants. Therefore, the volume is not beyond reckoning as he wants people to believe. And 90% or more of the currently existing waste can be recycled once the technology exists. But he just wants to scare people away from GNEP by pounding his fist on the hot button. That is annoying to me.
My hope is that GNEP will focus on the waste problem by developing and implementing the advanced fuel cycle and advanced burner reactor. Once that is done, which, again, could be done relatively quickly if the focus was there, the hot button waste issues would mostly go away. Then nuclear energy becoming a bigger player in electricity generation (beyond its current 20% or so) in the U.S. would be feasible.
Those are some of my thoughts.
[tags]GNEP, nuclear power, nuclear energy, nuke[/tags]
One Comment
Robert Alvarez
April 25th, 2007
at 7:26am
I appreciated the comments of Hal Pawloksi’s daughter, who works at the DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. However, I’m not sure she has read my actual report, versus the news release about it. Here is the URL for the report: http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/070423-radioactivewastes.pdf.
With respect to her claims about rapid deployment of nuclear spent fuel recycling and actinide transmutation, I draw your attention to a 1996 report by the National Research Council (NRC) done at the request of the DOE regarding major elements, which now make up the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (reprocessing, transmutation, waste management/disposal etc). The NRC concluded that if full-scale reprocessing and transmutation were successful it would cost $500 billion and take 150 years to accomplish. Perhaps she might want to share the technical and cost basis for her commentary that appears to contradict the National Academy of Sciences.
The United States walked away from reprocessing and breeder reactors by the early 1980’s because of proliferation, cost and technological concerns. France has continued to reprocess and its breeder program effectively halted a few years ago for cost and techological reasons. Of the world-wide plutonium stocks resulting from reprocessing of power reactor fuel, about one third has been used for reactor fuel. The remaining 200 metric tons sits at the reprocessing sites and is enough to fuel some 30,000 nuclear weapons.
Regardless of our disagreement about the significance of radioactive wastes in public debate, DOE’s troubled experience with radiochemical treatment of past reprocessing wastes should serve as a cautionary warning. With a liability in excess of $100 billion, and after 25 years, DOE has treated less than one percent of the radioactivity in defense high-level wastes for geological disposal.
Even though magnitude of radioactivity in wastes generated by the GNEP program would be unprecedented, DOE has yet to provide a credible plan for the safe management and disposal of these wastes. This plan should address waste volumes, disposition paths, site-specific impacts, regulatory requirements and life-cycle costs. Given past failures to address significant waste problems before they were created (Los Alamos is no exception), DOE’s rush to invest major public funds for deployment should be suspended.
Before we spend taxpayer dollars, doesn’t the public deserve to know whether or not GNEP is a downpayment on yet another large radioactive waste “balloon mortgage?”
Sincerely
Robert Alvarez