Mike Nartker and Todd Jacobson
WC Monitor
8/1/2014
AIKEN, S.C.—South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R) this week questioned the Department of Energy’s plan to ship German nuclear material to the Savannah River Site for processing. During a visit to Savannah River, where she was accompanied by Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and other DOE officials and lawmakers, Haley expressed concern over more nuclear material coming to Savannah River without a final disposition pathway. “The big concern is that there is no final disposition for this German waste and for … the people of South Carolina that is our concern,” she said. “I’m extremely proud confidence has been placed in this site, whether it’s from the Germans, whether it’s from the DOE, that they have said this is the site that can handle it, but it is my job and my duty on behalf of all us to say, ‘Yes but at what point, at what point does it end and with what result are we looking for, and when does it stop?’”
Haley is the highest-level official to date to raise concerns over DOE’s plan, which involves the return of U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium. The material is in the form of graphite spheres from the pebble bed AVR gas-cooled research reactor at the Juelich Research Center in Germany, and could be processed at the site’s H-Canyon facility using a process developed at Savannah River National Laboratory. The work is being fully funded by Germany. The Department is in the initial stages of an environmental assessment for the proposal, and held a public meeting on June 24 on the scope of the assessment and accepted public comments through July 21.
The plan has also been questioned by one of Haley’s main challengers in this year’s South Carolina governor’s race, Democratic candidate Vincent Sheheen, as well as in editorials in local papers and by other SRS stakeholder and activist groups. In a letter to Moniz this week, the group Savannah River Site Watch called on DOE to abandon the plan. “The half-baked plan to bring graphite spent fuel from two closed commercial gas-cooled reactors in Germany—the reactors were experimental, not research, reactors, and both were tied to the grid—would result in German high-level waste being processed via a new proliferation-prone reprocessing technique and ‘disposed of’ at SRS though the site is not a geologic repository,” the group wrote.
DOE Needs ‘Community’s Confidence,’ Moniz Says
DOE plans to work with South Carolina on the proposal for the German material, Moniz said in remarks during his visit, acknowledging the state’s concern over a lack of a final disposition path for the material already stored at Savannah River. Such material includes canisters of vitrified high-level waste, which were to go to the now-shuttered Yucca Mountain repository; and surplus plutonium. “We need the state and we need the community’s confidence in the longer-term path,” Moniz said. “We have moved some plutonium—not a huge amount—but we have moved some plutonium out [that] we have at this site.” He also said, “We cannot violate the laws of physics or the laws of budget but we are continuing to try to move as much waste as we can as early as we can. What we will do is make sure the delegation, the state, the community, is aware of … candidly, where we are and what can do.”
Plan ‘Very Much in Line’ With Other Nonproliferation Efforts, Moniz Says
Moniz said the German project is similar to other nonproliferation efforts the United States has undertaken, and said the German material did not pose safety risks. “That is very much in line with our program of trying to reduce the global danger by getting uranium and plutonium out of the system. It is also the case that in the United States—and it’s close to true globally—the H-Canyon is a unique resource. It is the only hardened nuclear processing facility that we have, and so this is a question where discussions are going on, we have been discussing that with the state and others, to determine the path forward,” Moniz said. “It is certainly consistent with the kind of program and the kinds of priorities we have of removing this material from the private sector. We have accepted for years now the repatriation of research reactor fuel. That has happened from numerous countries. “
Moniz also indicated that the project could have scientific benefits. “These kind of reactors, high temp gas reactors, could very well be part of the future and if we were to pursue this project it would itself be a very interesting project involving the laboratory because this kind of fuel has never been processed, in terms of this graphite,” he said. “The science is there to go forward but it could be something that is also part of a nuclear power future. Actually one of these reactors is being built right now in China for example. This kind of fuel, one of its attractions from a nonproliferation view, it is viewed as particularly stable.”
