SEC/DOE LIKES NUKE POWER?

Chu: Nuclear must be part of energy mix
H. Josef Hebert, March 11, 2009 (AP)

"Energy Secretary Steven Chu sought…to assure skeptical senators [at a Senate Budget Committee hearing] that the Obama administration supports continued development of nuclear energy, even as it backs away from building a nuclear waste dump in Nevada …

"Each time Chu gave [an] assurance…even as he reiterated that the administration has every intention of pulling the plug on a proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain…Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the committee's ranking Republican…said he was concerned about the administration's degree of support for building new reactors."

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"Chu said he is ready to act on loan guarantees for the first group of new reactors…Congress in 2005 authorized $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for new reactors, but none of the applications has yet to be approved.

"…Chu said the administration is determined to move in a new direction on how to deal with the thousands of tons of waste in the form of used reactor fuel now being kept at power plants. [He] said the material can be kept safely "for decades" at reactor sites. And he said he hopes to have a recommendation from a special panel [to which he will soon name members] on alternatives to Yucca Mountain and long-term nuclear waste disposal before the end of the year…"

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"Chu [referred] to future reprocessing of waste so it can be recycled…[but] said more research is needed because current methods of reprocessing used in Japan and Europe raise concerns about nuclear proliferation because they produce pure plutonium.

"Obama's proposed budget calls for eliminating funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, except for money needed to respond to questions from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on a Yucca license application the Bush administration submitted last year…Chu…said the [license] application process could provide an insight as to what the NRC will require of a future nuclear waste strategy."