(full article)Hatch Drafts Legislation To Ease Nuclear Waste Concerns
Sen. Orrin Hatch (D-UT) is drafting legislation intended to ease concerns about nuclear waste by requiring DOE to develop standards for nuclear reactors to use thorium fuel rather than uranium, sources say. The legislation is expected to be offered for consideration in upcoming negotiations on a final energy bill.
The nuclear industry is expecting an expansion in response to increased concerns about global warming and energy security, but nuclear opponents argue long-standing concerns about radioactive waste disposal and nuclear weapons proliferation should soften federal support for new reactors.
A source in Hatch's office says the upcoming bill is seen as “breaching the gap” between nuclear proponents and those “opposed to the transport of [nuclear] waste out to one site,” a group that includes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). The source says the bill is being shopped to Reid and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM). Calls to Reid's office were not returned.
Proponents say the thorium fuel cycle produces one third the radioactive waste that uranium does, which could help alleviate concerns about disposal and the potential use of enriched spent fuels in nuclear weapons by rogue states and potential terrorists. Hatch's “Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007” will be introduced in the next few weeks with the hope it could become part of an energy bill making its way through an informal House/Senate conference, a source familiar with the bill says.
The bill would would establish offices at DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide “incentives to nuclear reactor operators in the United States and foreign countries to use proliferation-resistant, low-waste thorium fuels in lieu of other fuels,” according to a draft version of the bill. The plan would also require DOE's Idaho National Engineering Laboratory to establish demonstration projects using the thorium fuel cycle.
Proponents of the bill say thorium fuel can power a reactor far longer than uranium, and therefore less waste is produced that needs to be transported or stored at a permanent or interim disposal facility. The thorium fuel cycle results in less fissile material than the use of uranium, and so it is less susceptible for use in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, according to the World Nuclear Association. “The spent fuel amounts to about half the volume of MOX [mixed oxide fuel] and is even less likely to allow recovery of weapons-usable material than spent MOX fuel, since less fissile plutonium remains in it,” according to a May report by the group.
A Virginia-based company involved in developing power plants fueled by thorium says on its website that the fuel has “the potential to eliminate existing plutonium stockpiles.” A report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says the production of fissile material in a plant using thorium fuel is “an order of magnitude lower than uranium.”
Proponents also say thorium is three- to four-times more common than uranium, and many existing nuclear power plants can be relatively easily retrofitted to accept the fuel. The U.S. has the fourth largest amount of “economically recoverable” reserves in the world, according to the WNA report. The world's largest reserves are in Australia, India and Norway.
But the fuel does have its drawbacks. A source with the Nuclear Energy Institute says it is more costly to work with and harder to handle because the radiation is “bone seeking.” Thorium was considered on par with uranium during the early days of the nuclear power industry, but the push for enriched weapons grade fuel favored uranium, according to a Senate source.
A nuclear power opponent with an environmental group says there is “no real advantage to a thorium fuel cycle” and dismisses claims about reduced waste and proliferation concerns as “overblown.” The source says thorium is not widely used in the United States because it involves “very complicated chemistry.” Many of the same health concerns that exist for uranium also hold true for thorium, including cancer risks, according the source. |
