On the NEI blog, Brian Mays makes a point about the White House's nuclear strategies:
How can this review be "thorough" or "comprehensive" when it already excludes possibilities before it has even begun?
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2010/01/blue-ribbon-commission-on-americas.html?showComment=1264804130187#c1754247658951101459
I went through the news archives to figure out Obama's nuclear policies. (They're not obvious: he is very political about them, and further he often ignores his own energy advisor, so you can't take Chu's (very open) views as a barometer of administration policy). I think Brian is more correct than he realizes. The Administration has systematically demolished the foundations of the nuclear waste strategies: geologic storage, spent fuel reprocessing, and fast-spectrum reactors.
Reprocessing
I said Obama regularly ignores his Nobelist aide; here's a clear example. Steven Chu strongly advocates reprocessing (recycling of spent fuel for reuse in nuclear reactors; separation and partitioning of non-fuel waste components to reduce their volume). Here for instance is an interview with NEI, alongside John MCCain:
(March 6, 2009)
Chu: I support reprocessing research. I think it’s an important part of the nuclear - [interrupted by McCain]
[...]
Chu: The interim storage of waste – the solidification of waste – is something we can do today. The NRC has said that it can be done safely. That buys us time to formulate a comprehensive plan in how we deal with the nuclear waste. The recycling which I think in the long term is very beneficial - it has the potential for greatly reducing the amount of waste - is something that we have to press on. But the time scale of the recycling development is different - we have a couple of decades quite frankly in my opinion to figure that one out.
[NEI Nuclear Notes] John McCain and Steven Chu on Yucca Mountain
Whereas the White House opposes commercial reprocessing and is dismantling its research. You won't find an official policy in an Obama speech (way too mercurial for that); you will have to browse the Federal Register to figure out what's going on.
(June 29, 2009)
SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE or Department) has decided to cancel the preparation of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (DOE/EIS-0396). [...] Via this notice, DOE announces that it has decided to cancel the GNEP PEIS because it is no longer pursuing domestic commercial reprocessing, which was the primary focus of the prior Administration's domestic GNEP program.
[Federal Register] Notice of Cancellation of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)
I'll ask the readers whether this is anti-nuclear politics, whether it is partisan politics (because GNEP was a Bush proposal), or whether it is part of the larger "non-proliferation" foreign policy. That third political motivation is that some diplomats view reprocessing as linked with nuclear weapons, therefore the US pushes other countries to ban reprocessing, which the US itself forgoes to appear consistent (foreign policy). As recent examples, the recent "123 agreement" with the United Arab Emirates:
(May 21, 2009)
President Obama has approved an agreement to help build a nuclear energy program in the United Arab Emirates, officials said Wednesday.
The agreement was reached by the administration of President George W. Bush and left for Obama to shepherd through Congress. The new president's team portrays it as a way to prevent Middle Eastern countries from building nuclear weapons under the guise of energy programs.
Under the agreement, the UAE agreed not to enrich uranium to run its nuclear plants, or to reprocess spent fuel, steps that could be used to create material for a bomb. In exchange, the UAE will be allowed to buy fuel and other materials for its nuclear power plants from U.S. businesses.
[Washington Post] U.S. to Help UAE Build Energy Program
Or the policy towards South Korea, which is seeking to develop pyroprocessing (!), but which the US is obstructing:
(February 2, 2010)
The U.S. is unlikely to allow South Korea to reprocess spent nuclear fuel that is piling up in secure storage facilities until a satisfactory solution to the North Korean nuclear problem is found, a report said this week. The matter is a key issue in negotiations between Seoul and Washington on the revision of the Korea-U.S. Atomic Energy Agreement, which expires in 2014.
Fred McGoldrick, a former chief U.S. representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, published the report on prospects for Seoul-Washington negotiations about nuclear energy at the request of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy of the Asia Foundation in the U.S. "It is difficult to imagine that the United States would agree to South Korean pyroprocessing until the North Korean nuclear issue reaches a satisfactory resolution," he wrote.
[Chosun Ilbo] U.S. 'Unlikely to Let S.Korea Reprocess Nuclear Fuel'
Sadly, our nuclear ludditism has global reach.
Fast reactors
Just two weeks ago, the White House' Office of Management and Budget (OMB) barred the national labs from researching fast reactors:
(January 15, 2010)
The White House has proposed barring Energy Department research on fast reactor recycling of nuclear waste and technical support for licensing of small, modular light-water reactors, drawing protests from Energy Secretary Steven Chu that such prohibitions will have broad adverse effects, including hurting the U.S. nuclear industry's renaissance; crimping U.S. ability to influence other countries' fast reactor designs to address proliferation concerns; and taking away nuclear waste disposal options that might be considered by the administration's planned blue-ribbon panel on alternatives to the Yucca Mountain repository.
...
In the letter, obtained by sister publication The Energy Daily, Chu said he "strongly disagree[s] with the policy direction [proposed by OMB] concerning allowable nuclear energy R&D activities."
[Defense Daily, mirrored on Free Republic (sorry)] White House Moves To Restrict DoE Nuclear Research
You may remember that the US national labs, particularly Argonne, developed the Integral Fast Reactor, which was similarly axed by bureaucrats in 1994. The excuse -- just like today's reprocessing politics -- was weapons proliferation. For even more tie-in, the original pyroprocessing chemistry -- the one the US is obstructing today in South Korea -- was developed by Argonne for the IFR.
Geological storage
Yucca mountain. 'nuf said.
So then, in the context of the administration's recent acts, what is this "expert" panel doing? I think it is a rubber-stamping committee to justify these numerous political decisions and actions, after the fact. The political pressure on this panel is obvious (how likely are they to recommend something the Boss just canceled?), and even if it weren't there the committee member has been cherry-picked for their views. The team's geologist, Allison MacFarlane, was chosen because she is the most vocal critic of the Yucca repository; she is there to validate Obama's (and Reid's) political decision. They can rely on her conclusions. The nonproliferation experts (Albert Carnesale, Susan Eisenhower) are there to raise the specter of nuclear war, to frighten reprocessing out of consideration. (I think it's not a coincidence that Carnesale represented the US in the "International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation", 1977-1980, in the Carter administration, when Carter outlawed nuclear reprocessing. This merits research).
