Jeremy L. Dillon
WC Monitor
7/10/2015
The German waste that the Department of Energy proposed sending to the Savannah River Site’s H-Canyon facility “is not of a proliferation concern” where it currently resides in Germany, according to a DOE internal memo from Aug. 1, 2013, obtained by Savannah River Site Watch under the Freedom of Information Act. The 900 kilograms of U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium comes in the form of graphite spheres from the pebble bed AVR gas-cooled research reactor at Germany’s Juelich Research Center, and DOE is currently preparing a draft environmental assessment on the proposal expected out this summer. The memo, prepared by the National Nuclear Security Administration, concluded that due to its location in Germany and that “the material is stored in a secure environment in a politically stable country,” the material is not of a proliferation risk. DOE has alleged in the past that the material was a proliferation risk, and needed to come to the U.S. for responsible disposal for that reason, which contradicts the findings of this memo. DOE-EM did not return calls for comment this week.
The NNSA, though, did say in the memo that the United States has an “unofficial responsibility” to dispose of the material because of its U.S. origin. “However, because the material is of U.S. origin, the NNSA believes that the Department does have an unofficial responsibility to assure the material is adequately dispositioned,” the memo said. “Therefore, NNSA supports “Work for Other” activities by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management to help Germany develop and implement an appropriate disposition pathway for this material.” Currently, the proposal calls for a disposal technique developed at Savannah River National Laboratory to address the fuel, which would take place at the site’s H-Canyon facility. It involves removing the graphite from the fuel kernels via a graphite digestion technology, DOE has said.
This memo represents another reason why the west should stay in Germany, according to SRS Watch activist Tom Clements. SRS Watch has been especially vocal about the shipments due to their proliferation risk, as well as the health and safety risk they would impose on the state. The group earlier this year led a list of 22 representatives from advocacy groups who sent DOE a letter requesting an environmental assessment of the waste. ““This memo should be the death knell for the proposal import and dump German spent fuel at SRS,” Clements said. “A host of reasons not to import the spent fuel have become clear over time and DOE must do the right thing, as we have already requested, and cancel the scheme to dump this highly radioactive German waste at SRS.”
