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Environment

Nuclear initiative aims to reduce proliferation risk

February 20, 2006 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 84, Issue 8

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Credit: PHOTO BY DAVID HANSON
Bodman
Credit: PHOTO BY DAVID HANSON
Bodman

The Bush Administration's plan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel will help expand nuclear power production worldwide while reducing the risk that plutonium and other radioactive weapon components will fall into the hands of terrorists, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman told a conference on nuclear energy in Washington, D.C., last week. Under the envisioned Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, the U.S. and other countries with advanced nuclear technologies would provide fresh fuel for power reactors around the world and then recover the spent fuel for recycling. "Processing spent uranium fuel for use in advanced reactors will allow us to extract much more energy from the same amount of nuclear material while also vastly reducing both the volume and the radiotoxicity of the waste that ultimately requires disposal," said Bodman. "At the same time, because the process will consume-rather than separate-plutonium, proliferation risks will be significantly reduced." Bodman said there is currently 200 metric tons of separated plutonium, produced by other nations' civilian nuclear power plants, stored at various sites around the world. Putting this material back into reactors as fuel, he explained, would greatly reduce the risk that it might be stolen or seized for destructive purposes.

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