[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 160 (Thursday, August 18, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51358-51361]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-21069]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY


National Nuclear Security Administration Amended Record of 
Decision: Disposition of Surplus Highly Enriched Uranium Environmental 
Impact Statement

AGENCY: National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of 
Energy.

ACTION: Amended Record of Decision.

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SUMMARY: The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-
autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is 
amending the August 5, 1996, Record of Decision (the 1996 ROD) (61 FR 
40619) for the Disposition of Surplus Highly Enriched Uranium 
Environmental

[[Page 51359]]

Impact Statement (HEU EIS) (DOE/EIS-0240). The 1996 ROD included DOE's 
decision to implement a program to render a nominal 200 metric tons of 
surplus highly-enriched uranium (HEU) non-weapons-usable by blending it 
down to low-enriched uranium (LEU) and selling as much of the resulting 
LEU as possible (up to 85 percent) for use as reactor fuel. In 2007, 
NNSA prepared a Supplement Analysis (DOE/EIS-0240-SA1) to the HEU EIS 
but did not make a decision at that time. The Supplement Analysis 
analyzed the potential environmental impacts associated with ongoing 
HEU disposition activities and potential changes to those activities: 
supplying LEU to reactors in foreign countries through U.S. persons 
under certain circumstances; establishing new pathways for disposing of 
HEU materials that would not be converted to LEU for reactor fuel; and 
down-blending additional quantities of HEU for use as reactor fuel. 
NNSA now is amending the 1996 ROD to make decisions regarding each of 
these proposals.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For further information about the 
Surplus HEU Disposition Program and the American Assured Fuel Supply, 
contact: Robert M. George, HEU Disposition Program Manager, Office of 
Fissile Materials Disposition, National Nuclear Security 
Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, 
SW., Washington, DC 20585; (202) 586-1530.
    For general information concerning the DOE National Environmental 
Policy Act (NEPA) process, contact: Ms. Carol M. Borgstrom, Director, 
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance (GC-54), U.S. Department of 
Energy, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585; (202) 586-
4600; leave a message at (800) 472-2756; or send an e-mail to 
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#b1d0c2dafff4e1f0f1d9c09fd4dfd4c3d6c89fd6dec7"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="b3d2c0d8fdf6e3f2f3dbc29dd6ddd6c1d4ca9dd4dcc5">[email protected]</span></a>. Additional information regarding DOE NEPA 
activities and access to many DOE NEPA documents are available on the 
Internet through the DOE NEPA Web site at http://nepa.energy.gov. Some 
of these documents, including the HEU EIS referenced in this Amended 
ROD, are available upon request as described at http://nepa.energy.gov/nepa_request.cfm.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Background

    Following the end of the Cold War, the United States identified a 
surplus of weapons-usable HEU. HEU has a concentration of 20 percent or 
more of uranium-235, which is a fissile material that can be used to 
make nuclear weapons. In 1994, the United States declared 174 metric 
tons of HEU to be surplus to defense needs. In the HEU EIS, DOE 
analyzed alternatives to disposition a nominal 200 metric tons of 
surplus HEU in order to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons 
proliferation in an environmentally safe manner by reducing stockpiles 
of weapons-usable fissile materials, setting a nonproliferation example 
for other nations, and allowing peaceful beneficial re-use of the 
material.
    Alternatives analyzed in the HEU EIS involved the continued storage 
of HEU or mixing the surplus HEU with other uranium materials (LEU, 
natural uranium, or depleted uranium) to lower the concentration of 
uranium-235 so that it is not weapons-usable, a process called ``down-
blending.'' DOE analyzed a range of scenarios regarding how much HEU 
would be down-blended (to approximately four percent uranium-235) for 
use in commercial reactors as opposed to blending to approximately 0.9 
percent uranium-235 for disposal as low-level radioactive waste (LLW).
    The HEU EIS evaluated the potential environmental impacts of down-
blending at up to four existing U.S. facilities: DOE's Y-12 National 
Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; DOE's Savannah River Site (SRS) 
in Aiken, South Carolina; The Babcock & Wilcox Company (now B&W Nuclear 
Operations Group, Inc. [B&W NOG]) in Lynchburg, Virginia; and Nuclear 
Fuel Services, Inc., (NFS) in Erwin, Tennessee. These sites were 
considered because they have technically viable HEU conversion and 
blending capabilities and could down-blend surplus HEU to LEU for use 
in commercial fuel or for disposal as waste. B&W NOG and NFS, which is 
now owned by B&W NOG, are both licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission (NRC) to process HEU.
    As described in the 1996 ROD (61 FR 40619; August 5, 1996), DOE 
planned to down-blend as much surplus HEU as possible (then assumed to 
be up to 85 percent of the 200 metric tons, i.e., approximately 170 
metric tons) into LEU for use as commercial reactor fuel. The remainder 
(approximately 30 metric tons) would be down-blended and then disposed 
of as low-level waste (LLW). DOE planned to use a combination of the 
four sites and estimated that the blend-down program would be completed 
in about 15-20 years. This alternative was identified in the 1996 ROD 
as the environmentally preferable alternative. To date, almost 15 years 
after the ROD was issued, DOE has down-blended approximately 120 metric 
tons of surplus HEU to LEU and provided all the LEU for use in 
commercial or research reactors.
    In the fall of 2005, up to an additional 200 metric tons of HEU 
were declared surplus to nuclear weapon program needs. Of this, up to 
160 metric tons were designated for the U.S. Naval Reactors Program for 
use as reactor fuel. However, based on historical data, DOE anticipated 
that up to approximately 32 metric tons of this HEU might be unsuitable 
for use as naval reactor fuel, and proposed to down-blend rejected 
material to LEU. Another 20 metric tons of the 200 metric ton 
declaration were designated for down-blending. Down-blending this HEU 
began in 2009, consistent with the 1996 ROD.

American Assured Fuel Supply Initiative

    In 2005, the Secretary of Energy announced that DOE would set aside 
a stockpile of LEU derived from 17.4 metric tons of surplus HEU to be 
held in reserve to address potential disruptions in the nuclear fuel 
supply of eligible foreign recipients that meet certain 
nonproliferation criteria. In the Explanatory Statement accompanying 
the House Appropriations Committee Print for the Consolidated 
Appropriations Act, 2008 (Pub. L. 110-161), which was given the same 
effect as a joint explanatory statement, Congress recommended that DOE 
also make the LEU available to domestic reactors in the event of a 
supply disruption. This effort to establish and manage an LEU reserve 
was originally referred to as the Reliable Fuel Supply Initiative, but 
now is called the American Assured Fuel Supply (AFS).

Proposed Action and Program Changes

    NNSA proposes to implement the AFS initiative and modify certain 
elements of the existing surplus HEU disposition program:
    (1) American Assured Fuel Supply. Under the AFS, a portion of LEU 
derived from down-blending surplus HEU would be held in reserve to 
respond, through U.S. intermediaries, to disruptions in the foreign or 
domestic supply of nuclear fuel. In the 2007 Supplement Analysis, this 
initiative was referred to as the Reliable Fuel Supply Initiative and 
was limited in scope to ensuring that foreign countries with good 
nonproliferation credentials have access to the nuclear fuel market and 
the benefits of nuclear power. Under the current proposal, the AFS 
would supply LEU in the event of a supply disruption both to recipients 
in foreign countries through a U.S. person or recipients in the United 
States. This would further nuclear nonproliferation objectives by

[[Page 51360]]

supporting civilian nuclear energy development while minimizing 
proliferation risks.
    Down-blending the 17.4 metric tons of surplus HEU commenced in 2007 
and is scheduled to be completed by 2012.\1\ These operations are the 
same as analyzed in the HEU EIS and are consistent with the existing 
ROD. The down-blending will result in approximately 290 metric tons of 
LEU, of which approximately 230 metric tons will form the AFS. The 
remainder of the LEU will be used to pay for the down-blending and 
processing costs. Forty metric tons of LEU will be stored in existing 
facilities at the Westinghouse fuel fabrication facility in Columbia, 
South Carolina, and the rest of the DOE-owned LEU will be available for 
the facility's working inventory subject to contract conditions for 
providing LEU upon request by DOE.
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    \1\ NNSA awarded the contract for down-blending to a team 
consisting of WesDyne International (a subsidiary of Westinghouse 
Electric Company) and NFS. NFS is down-blending the surplus HEU to 
LEU at its facility in Erwin, Tennessee.
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    The sale of LEU from the AFS will be conducted consistent with the 
policies and guidance in the ``Secretary of Energy's 2008 Policy 
Statement on Management of Department of Energy's Excess Uranium 
Inventory'' (March 11, 2008) and the DOE Excess Uranium Inventory 
Management Plan.\2\ In all cases, the U.S. persons purchasing the LEU 
must meet all applicable licensing requirements and other 
authorizations for the possession, use, and transportation of nuclear 
materials. If the AFS is used to supply a foreign recipient, the U.S. 
persons exporting the LEU will obtain a license from the NRC. DOE will 
establish the price of the LEU at the time of delivery using 
commercially acceptable market indices, to the extent practical, and 
ensure that reasonable value is obtained. All proceeds from the sale 
will be deposited in the U.S. Treasury.
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    \2\ These documents are available on the internet at: http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/Excess%20Uranium%20Inventory.pdf and http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/inventory_ plan_unclassified.pdf.
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    The U.S. persons purchasing LEU from the AFS will be solely 
responsible for transportation, insurance, safety, and liability issues 
once title is transferred. The LEU will be in the form of uranium 
hexafluoride (UF<INF>6</INF>) at a specific assay (generally 4.95% U-
235); DOE assumes no responsibility beyond certification that the LEU 
meets ASTM International, formerly American Society for Testing 
Materials (ASTM), specifications and is of a certain quantity and 
assay.
    For additional information on the policies and process for use of 
the AFS, please see ``Notice of Availability: American Assured Fuel 
Supply,'' also published in today's Federal Register.
    (2) New Disposition Pathways for HEU Discard Material. The HEU EIS 
analyzed the down-blending of low-equity \3\ HEU materials to an 
enrichment level of 0.9 percent uranium-235, and disposing of the 
resulting LEU at a low-level radioactive waste facility. NNSA now 
proposes instead to directly dispose of these materials only if they 
meet acceptance criteria for disposal as LLW.\4\ Most disposal would 
occur at DOE's Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) (formerly the 
Nevada Test Site).
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    \3\ Low-equity items include materials with varying enrichments 
that are no longer needed to meet programmatic needs, have no 
further defined use, and are commonly considered uneconomical for 
recovery due to low concentration of HEU or due to impurities.
    \4\ The Supplement Analysis also analyzes the potential 
environmental impacts of direct disposal in a geologic repository of 
15 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel containing HEU. That fuel 
currently is in safe and secure storage along with a much larger 
quantity of spent nuclear fuel at Idaho National Laboratory, and DOE 
is not proposing any change at this time in the management of that 
material.
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    (3) Down-blending Additional HEU Over a Longer Period of Time. The 
quantity of surplus HEU available for disposition and the expected 
period of program implementation both have increased since the 1996 
ROD. Additional quantities of surplus HEU primarily derive from two 
sources: new material declared excess to weapons needs in 2005, and HEU 
returned to DOE from foreign research reactor and domestic research 
reactor programs. NNSA proposes to down-blend these additional 
quantities of HEU to LEU for use in fabricating fuel for nuclear power 
plants, research reactors and isotope production facilities. The 1996 
ROD foresaw HEU down-blending activities continuing for 15-20 years. 
NNSA now anticipates that down-blending may continue over an extended 
period, out to at least 2050, based on the pace of ongoing activities 
and because the material addressed by the 2005 declaration is coming 
from nuclear weapon dismantlement over the coming decades.
    Down-blending of HEU from foreign or domestic research reactor 
spent nuclear fuel would occur only if DOE decides to chemically 
process, (reprocess) that fuel, which would separate the HEU from other 
components of the fuel. DOE currently plans to accept research reactor 
spent nuclear fuel through 2019, as announced in amended RODs (69 FR 
69901; December 1, 2004 and 74 FR 4173; January 23, 2009) for the 
Environmental Impact Statement on a Proposed Nuclear Weapons 
Nonproliferation Policy Concerning Foreign Research Reactor Spent 
Nuclear Fuel (FRR SNF EIS) (DOE/EIS-0218).
    Associated reprocessing operations are evaluated in the Savannah 
River Site Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Final Environmental Impact 
Statement (SRS SNF EIS) (DOE/EIS-0279 2000). DOE has no plans to 
reprocess spent nuclear fuel solely for the purpose of extracting HEU. 
However, activities associated with managing the fuel for the purposes 
of stabilization, facility cleanup, treatment, waste management, safe 
disposal, or environment, safety, and health protection could result in 
the separation of HEU in weapons-usable form that could pose a 
proliferation threat. If HEU is recovered from spent fuel for one or 
more of these reasons, it would be available for down-blending 
consistent with the 1996 ROD for the HEU EIS.

Basis for Decision and Associated Environmental Impacts

    The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations implementing 
NEPA at 40 CFR 1502.9(c) require Federal agencies to prepare a 
supplement to an EIS when an agency makes substantial changes in the 
proposed action that are relevant to environmental concerns or when 
there are significant new circumstances or information relevant to 
environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its 
impacts. DOE NEPA Implementing Procedures at 10 CFR 1021.314(c) direct 
that a supplement analysis be prepared to assist in making that 
determination when it is unclear whether a supplement to an EIS is 
required. NNSA prepared the Supplement Analysis for the Disposition of 
Surplus Highly Enriched Uranium (DOE/EIS-0240-SA1) in 2007 in 
accordance with these CEQ and DOE procedures.
    In the HEU Supplement Analysis, NNSA analyzed the potential 
environmental impacts from the ongoing HEU disposition program, as well 
as potential impacts from port activities and transportation of LEU by 
ship across the global commons (ocean) to support the proposal to make 
LEU available to reactors in foreign countries. The Supplement Analysis 
did not identify an end date for implementation of the proposed 
activities because, as noted above, receipt of surplus HEU into the 
disposition program is ongoing.
    The Supplement Analysis assumed the continued availability of the 
four facilities identified in the HEU EIS for continued blend down of 
HEU.

[[Page 51361]]

Potential impacts were based on processing 10 metric tons of HEU per 
year at each facility.
    The potential impacts would remain similar to those analyzed in the 
HEU EIS and Supplement Analysis. NNSA expects that there would be 
changes over time due to factors such as normal population fluctuations 
among work forces and in communities near the involved facilities. 
These changes would not create any significant new circumstances or 
information related to the proposed actions. Activities would continue 
in existing, appropriately licensed or approved facilities. Potential 
environmental impacts would remain small and within applicable 
regulatory and other limits.
    For AFS, which was not envisioned in the HEU EIS, potential impacts 
of the domestic program would be identical to those associated with the 
ongoing HEU disposition program. Prior to delivery to a reactor, one or 
more commercial nuclear fuel fabrication facilities would accommodate 
the LEU for the AFS reserve in its working inventory and existing 
storage capacity. This activity would be consistent with the 
facilities' existing NRC operating licenses and would not require 
additional construction. In addition, as analyzed in the Supplement 
Analysis, transportation activities to provide LEU to foreign reactors 
would add small potential impacts associated with transfer activities 
at the port of departure and overseas shipments through the global 
commons.
    Disposal of certain HEU materials as LLW would result in potential 
impacts associated with transportation and disposal. Nevada National 
Security Site (NNSS) is the most likely disposal site for this LLW. The 
HEU EIS included an analysis of transporting 0.9 percent LEU to NNSS 
for disposal. Without down-blending, the low-equity HEU materials would 
have a higher concentration of uranium-235, but with approved packaging 
and other required controls, the potential impacts would be similar to 
the transportation and disposal of 0.9 percent LEU at NNSS. DOE also 
has analyzed transportation of low-level radioactive wastes to NNSS in 
the Environmental Impact Statement for the Nevada Test Site and Off-
Site Locations in the State of Nevada (DOE/EIS-0243). That EIS also 
included analysis of waste disposal activities and resulted in a ROD 
identifying the NNSS as available for the disposal of LLW if it meets 
the NNSS waste acceptance criteria (61 FR 65551, December 13, 1996). If 
NNSA were to use a different facility for disposal, the transportation 
impacts would be similar to those associated with use of NNSS (i.e., 
similar distances and population distributions would be involved), and 
disposal would occur in existing, licensed facilities so that impacts 
would be consistent with approved operations at the facility. 
Recognizing the potential for disposal at other sites, the HEU EIS 
identified the analysis of transportation impacts to NNSS as 
representative of other possible routes. In addition, DOE has analyzed 
the transportation and disposal of LLW in other NEPA analyses, 
including the Waste Management Programmatic Environmental Impact 
Statement for Managing Treatment, Storage, and Disposal of Radioactive 
and Hazardous Waste (DOE/EIS-0200, 1997).

Amended Decision

    Consistent with the decisions announced in the ROD issued pursuant 
to the HEU EIS (61 FR 40619; August 5, 1996), NNSA will continue 
ongoing surplus HEU disposition program activities. NNSA has decided to 
also make the following changes to the HEU disposition program:
    (1) Implement the AFS, including storage of LEU and, as needed, 
transportation of the LEU by ship across the ocean for use in foreign 
reactors.
    (2) Dispose of certain HEU materials as low-level radioactive waste 
without prior down-blending if the materials meet applicable waste 
acceptance criteria.
    (3) Increase the quantity of HEU available for down-blending and 
continue down-blending operations beyond the 20 years anticipated in 
the 1996 HEU EIS.
    NNSA will use all practicable means to avoid or minimize 
environmental harm when implementing the actions described in this 
Amended ROD. NNSA operates pursuant to a number of Federal laws 
including environmental laws, DOE Orders, and Federal, State, and local 
controls and agreements. Also, the commercial activities associated 
with the down-blending, transportation, and storage of HEU and LEU are 
regulated by the NRC and the Department of Transportation. Many of 
these requirements mandate actions that serve to mitigate potential 
adverse environmental impacts.
    For transactions that trigger the requirements of section 3112(d) 
of the United States Enrichment Corporation Privatization Act, DOE will 
assess the impact of a release from the AFS on the domestic market, and 
will provide its recommendation to the Secretary to make the 
appropriate determination as to whether the transfer will have an 
adverse material impact on the domestic uranium enrichment, conversion, 
or mining industries.

    Issued in Washington, DC, this 29th day of April, 2011.
Thomas P. D'Agostino,
Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration.
[FR Doc. 2011-21069 Filed 8-17-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P


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