The Savannah River Site (SRS) Citizens Advisory Board’s Nuclear Materials Committee unveiled Tuesday a resolution opposing the Department of Energy’s (DOE) proposal to receive U.S.-origin highly enriched uranium (HEU) from Germany for processing and disposition at the South Carolina facility.
The draft position document supports a “No Action” alternative to a potential HEU shipment to the U.S., which would leave the material in Germany. The committee did not take any decisive action on the resolution, but plans to meet again in July.
In January, DOE released a draft environmental assessment of the potential shipment that found minimal risk in a contested proposal to bring 900 kilograms of HEU from German research reactors to SRS. In 2012, Germany asked the department for assistance in disposing of the material, which was originally sent to Germany under the Atoms for Peace program. DOE has not yet made a decision on the HEU, and the “No Action” option is still on the table.
According to the committee’s draft document on the potential shipment, DOE did not give a “compelling purpose and need for the proposal.” The resolution says the shipment is not necessary since the spent nuclear fuel is stable in its current state, and because Germany is a stable ally that could manage the material without help from the U.S.
The panel also contended that DOE has not evaluated all possible technological and siting alternatives in the event that the material is transferred to the U.S. Not processing the material is a reasonable alternative, the document says, because it is “amenable to long-term storage and disposal as is.” The document further said the proposal will “add to an already large burden of indefinite [special nuclear fuel] and high-level radioactive waste storage at SRS with no established path for disposal.”
On Monday, DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration announced that a shipment of plutonium from Japan had arrived at the Savannah River Site.
