Department of Energy Awards Over $10 Million for GNEP Siting Grants

What fascinates me most about this is that two of the grant recipients and locations immediately drew my attention since they were involved in some very interesting business deals in the past; now they are coming back on-line again under community reinvestment/economic revitalization project under the US EPA Brownfields program. interesting


http://www.gnep.energy.gov/gnepPRs/gnepPR013007.html

January 30, 2007

Department of Energy Awards Over $10 Million for GNEP Siting Grants

WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that over $10 million will be used for 11 commercial and public consortia selected to conduct detailed siting studies for integrated spent fuel recycling facilities under President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP).

“These facilities will enable us to effectively recycle spent nuclear fuel in a safe and proliferation-resistant manner. They will set the technological standard and allow us to influence energy policy abroad while increasing energy security here at home,” DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said. “With the negotiations complete, we are ready to proceed from an initial phase to one where actual studies can explore sites for GNEP-related facilities.”

Award recipients, announced in November 2006, will carry out siting studies to determine the possibility of hosting an advanced nuclear fuel recycling center and/or an advanced recycling reactor. Beginning today, recipients will conduct detailed site characterization studies of the sites which were proposed in their Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) responses. Recipients will have 90-days to complete these studies and submit a Site Characterization Report to DOE on May 1, 2007.

Of the 11 sites, six are currently owned and operated by DOE. Sites, lead award recipients, and award amounts are as follows:

Proposed Site Location Teaming Consortia Award Amounts

1. Atomic City, ID; EnergySolutions, LLC; $915,448

2. Barnwell, SC; EnergySolutions, LLC; $963,151

3. Hanford Site, WA; Tri-City Industrial Development Council/Columbia Basin Consulting Group; $1,020,000

4. Hobbs, NM; Eddy Lea Energy Alliance; $1,590,016

5. Idaho National Laboratory, ID; Regional Development Alliance, Inc; $648,745

6. Morris, IL; General Electric Company; $1,484,875

7. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN; Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee; $894,704

8. Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, KY; Paducah Uranium Plant Asset Utilization, Inc.; $664,600

9. Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, OH; Piketon Initiative for Nuclear Independence, LLC; $673,761

10. Roswell, NM; EnergySolutions, LLC; $1,134,522

11. Savannah River National Laboratory, SC; Economic Development Partnership of Aiken and Edgefield Counties; $468,420

TOTAL: $10,458,242

Information generated from the detailed siting studies of non-DOE sites is expected to address a variety of site-related matters, including site and nearby land uses; demographics; ecological and habitat assessment; threatened or endangered species; historical, archaeological and cultural resources; geology and seismology; weather and climate; and regulatory and permitting requirements. Information requirements for the DOE sites are more limited due to the availability of previous studies.

Such information may also be used in preparing the draft programmatic environmental impact statement (PEIS) – a process that began in early January (http://www.energy.gov/news/4560.htm) – which will evaluate the potential environmental impacts from each proposed GNEP facility.

An advanced nuclear fuel recycling center contains facilities where usable uranium and transuranics are separated from spent light water reactor fuel then produced into new fuel (or “transmutation fuel”) which then could be reused in an advanced recycling reactor. This advanced recycling reactor is a fast reactor that would demonstrate the ability to reuse and consume materials recovered from spent nuclear fuel, including long-lived elements that would otherwise be disposed of in a geologic repository.

GNEP is a part of President Bush's Advanced Energy Initiative, which seeks to reduce our reliance in imported oil by changing the way we power our cars, homes and business. For more information on GNEP, visit: http://www.gnep.gov/. Additional information on the DOE’s nuclear energy program may be found on http://www.nuclear.energy.gov/.

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