Nuclear Fuel Cycle Options: DOE Needs to Enhance Planning for Technology Assessment and Collaboration with Industry and Other Countries
Published: 2011-10-17T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: More demand for electricity and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions have increased interest in nuclear power, which does not rely on fossil fuels. However, concerns remain about the radioactive spent fuel that nuclear reactors generate. The Department of Energy (DOE) issued a research and development (R&D) plan to select nuclear fuel cycles and technologies, some of which reprocess spent fuel and recycle some nuclear material, such as plutonium. These fuel cycles may help reduce the generation of spent fuel and risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. GAO was asked to review (1) DOE's approach to selecting nuclear fuel cycles and technologies, (2) DOE's efforts to reduce proliferation and terrorism risks, and (3) selected countries' experiences in reprocessing and recycling spent fuel. GAO reviewed DOE's plan and met with officials from DOE, the nuclear industry, and France and the United Kingdom.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: DOE's R&D plan relies on a systematic approach--that is, the use of scientific methods and engineering principles--to select and demonstrate nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies. However, it does not explain the current readiness levels of the technologies associated with the fuel cycles and the estimated time and cost of further development; it also does not explain how DOE will collaborate with the nuclear industry and other countries experienced in nuclear R&D in achieving its goals. In particular: (1) In 2010, DOE screened 863 previously identified nuclear fuel cycles and technologies and grouped them into 266 fuel cycles for further exploration. Independent reviewers found this screening process useful and recommended changes that DOE officials stated they would act on. (2) DOE's R&D plan states that it is necessary to assess the readiness levels of technologies associated with nuclear fuel cycles. However, neither the plan nor the screening process describe the current readiness levels of all critical technologies or the time or estimated costs for further development. As GAO has reported, assessing the readiness of technology is a best practice to help control schedule and costs. (3) DOE's R&D plan states the importance of collaborating with the nuclear industry--the ultimate user of any fuel cycle and technologies that are developed--and DOE continues to get industry advice. However, the plan does not include a strategy for long-term collaboration with industry, without which DOE cannot be assured that the nuclear industry will accept and use the fuel cycles and technologies that the department may develop. (4) DOE has agreements with other countries that provide collaborative opportunities to share research results and leverage DOE's R&D efforts, such as using the countries' research facilities. However, the plan does not explain how DOE will use these agreements to advance its R&D goals. As stated in DOE's R&D plan, the Office of Nuclear Energy has efforts under way to minimize proliferation and terrorism risks associated with nuclear power, but faces challenges. These challenges include developing reliable and cost-effective fuel cycles while minimizing the attractiveness to potential adversaries of radioactive materials resulting from these cycles. NNSA is also working on these issues, and the two agencies have worked together informally to avoid duplication and overlap but do not have a formal mechanism to collaborate on future efforts, which can help agencies strengthen their commitment to work collaboratively by clarifying who will lead or participate in which activities and how decisions will be made. GAO reviewed France's and the United Kingdom's decades of experiences in developing and operating reprocessing and recycling infrastructures. These experiences can provide some insights into the decisions DOE may need to make in selecting nuclear fuel cycles and technologies. For example, reprocessing and recycling is likely to reduce the amount of space needed for a nuclear waste repository because some of the radioactive materials are reused, but the amount of this reduction would depend on how much of the radioactive materials that are reused might ultimately require disposal in such a repository.
section_title: What GAO Recommends
paragraphs: GAO recommends that DOE revise its plan to include the current readiness levels of fuel cycle technologies and the estimated time and cost to develop them, include a strategy for long-term collaboration with the nuclear industry, and specify how DOE will use international agreements to advance its efforts. GAO also recommends that DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) complete a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to avoid duplication and overlap of efforts. DOE agreed with the first three recommendations and did not rule out the future use of a MOU. GAO continues to believe that this formal collaboration mechanism is needed.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: In recent years, there has been a worldwide push to develop commercial  nuclear power, propelled in part by the need to keep pace with higher  demands for electricity and by concerns about greenhouse gas  emissions, which result primarily from the burning of fossil fuels. As of  July 2011, the United States had 104 operating nuclear power reactors, 1  under construction, and 34 planned or proposed for construction by 2030.  In addition, other countries have a combined total of 336 operating  reactors, 60 nuclear reactors under construction, and 463 planned or  proposed for construction over the next two decades. Nuclear energy,  which supplied about 20 percent of the nation’s electric power in 2010,  offers a domestic source of electricity with low emissions but also  presents difficulties—including what to do with nuclear fuel after it has  been used and removed from commercial power reactors. This material,  known as spent nuclear fuel, is highly radioactive and considered one of  the most hazardous materials on earth. The accident involving the  nuclear reactors in Fukushima, Japan, which were damaged by the  March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, once again brought to the fore  concerns about the potential for nuclear reactors to fail and problems in  dealing with the spent nuclear fuel generated by these reactors.
Nuclear power generation depends on the nuclear fuel cycle—that is, the  process of mining uranium, enriching it, fabricating it into nuclear fuel,  fissioning the fuel in a nuclear reactor, and managing the spent fuel once it  is removed from the reactor. Once the spent nuclear fuel, which contains  plutonium from the fissioning process, is removed, it may be stored for  eventual disposal in a geologic repository. This approach to generating  nuclear energy is referred to as a once-through or open fuel cycle and is  the approach U.S. nuclear utilities use. By contrast, in a closed fuel cycle,  the spent nuclear fuel is reprocessed to separate the plutonium from the  uranium and other radioactive materials for reuse. It may then be recycled  either by mixing the plutonium with uranium from another source to make  mixed oxide fuel, or MOX fuel, or by fabricating new nuclear fuel, known as  reprocessed uranium fuel, by using the uranium resulting from  reprocessing. Other countries, such as France, rely on a closed fuel cycle  to manage their spent nuclear fuel. According to the Department of Energy  (DOE), an advantage of reprocessing and recycling includes the greater  use of the energy content of the original fuel and a reduction in the amount  of radioactive waste requiring disposal in a geologic repository. According  to a report from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—a  semi-autonomous agency within DOE with a lead role in addressing  proliferation and terrorism risks—a key disadvantage of reprocessing is that  it separates out plutonium in the spent nuclear fuel, which can be used in a  nuclear weapon. According to the same NNSA report, other nations might  use this process to divert plutonium for a nuclear weapon, and terrorists  might seek to steal plutonium or other material that could be used in a  nuclear explosive device.
Until the mid-1970s, the United States reprocessed spent nuclear fuel but  reverted to the once-through fuel cycle, primarily to discourage other  countries from pursuing reprocessing because of concerns over nuclear  proliferation. In 2006, DOE announced its intention to reconsider  reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, as part of an effort known as the Global  Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). Under GNEP, DOE proposed,  among other things, building multibillion-dollar nuclear facilities to  demonstrate advanced reprocessing and recycling technologies that  could significantly reduce waste, as well as reduce proliferation and  terrorism risks by making nuclear fuel in a manner that is less useful to  adversaries. However, in April 2008, we reported that the technologies  that DOE proposed for demonstration were not sufficiently developed to  warrant the building of commercial-scale facilities and that DOE’s backup  plan to rely on commercially available technology would not meet GNEP’s  goals of significantly reducing waste and minimizing proliferation risk.
Congress eliminated funding for GNEP in fiscal year 2009. The House  Committee on Appropriations encouraged the next administration to take  a more comprehensive and responsible approach to the management of  spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Committee  supported DOE’s research on nuclear fuel cycles but provided no funding  for the design and construction of facilities for recycling spent nuclear fuel  and for associated research facilities. Instead, the Committee directed  DOE to focus on reducing the waste generated by reprocessing spent  nuclear fuel, designing safeguard measures for reprocessing facilities,  and researching ways to reduce the proliferation risks of reprocessing  spent nuclear fuel. Moreover, the Committee directed the department to  continue to coordinate this research effort with other countries having  advanced fuel cycle capabilities, such as France and the United Kingdom.  In January 2010, in a memorandum to the Secretary of Energy, the  President directed DOE to establish the Blue Ribbon Commission on  America’s Nuclear Future to conduct a comprehensive review of policies  for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle, including all  alternatives for the storage, processing, and disposal of civilian and  defense spent nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The Commission issued a  draft report on July 29, 2011, and plans to issue a final report in January  2012, after considering public comments. The draft report discussed,  among other things, the current status of nuclear fuel cycles and  associated technologies and the extent to which DOE contributes to  efforts to further develop them, as well as other countries’ experiences in  waste management programs and their potential usefulness for the  United States.
In April 2010, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy issued a new research and  development (R&D) “roadmap” for nuclear energy with four objectives,  followed by separate implementation plans for each of these objectives.  In this report, we refer to the roadmap and the implementation plans  collectively as DOE’s R&D plan. This report focuses on two of these  objectives. Under the first objective, DOE seeks to select and  demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. According to DOE,  sustainable nuclear fuel cycles are those that would better utilize uranium  resources, maximize energy generation, minimize waste generation,  improve safety, and limit proliferation and terrorism risks. DOE  acknowledges that its key challenge in this objective is to develop a suite  of options that will enable future decision-makers to make informed  choices about how best to manage the spent fuel from reactors. Under  the second objective, DOE seeks to understand and minimize the  potential risks of proliferation and terrorism associated with the  technologies for reprocessing and recycling.
In this context, you asked us to review DOE’s plans to assess nuclear fuel  cycles and associated technologies and other countries’ experiences with  these technologies. Our objectives were to review the (1) approach DOE  is taking to select and demonstrate nuclear fuel cycles and associated  technologies, (2) efforts DOE is making to understand and minimize  nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks associated with these nuclear fuel  cycles and technologies, and (3) experiences of France and the United  Kingdom in reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel that may be  useful to the United States in selecting fuel cycles and technologies.
To address these objectives, we reviewed DOE’s approach to implement  its new R&D plan for selecting and demonstrating nuclear fuel cycles and  understanding and minimizing the risks of proliferation and terrorism. We  obtained and reviewed pertinent documents and interviewed cognizant  Office of Nuclear Energy officials, as well as officials from the NNSA and  the Department of State, which are two of the federal government’s lead  agencies for proliferation and terrorism risks. We visited experts at the  Idaho National Laboratory, which is the Office of Nuclear Energy’s lead  laboratory; and interviewed a nonprobability sample of experts at other  national laboratories, such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,  Brookhaven National Laboratory, and the Los Alamos National  Laboratory, about nuclear fuel options, waste management, proliferation  and terrorism risks, and related issues. Because we used a nonprobability  sample of experts at national laboratories to speak with, the information  we obtained from these experts cannot be generalized to all experts at all  national laboratories, but the interviews provided us with information on  the perspectives of various experts from the national laboratories. We  also conducted semi-structured interviews with five subject matter experts  who could provide a range of views on reprocessing and recycling spent  nuclear fuel and on DOE’s R&D plan. To select these experts for  interviews, we reviewed presentations given by them before the Blue  Ribbon Commission, reviewed literature by experts who had conducted  extensive research on relevant issues, and sought recommendations  from other subject matter experts and government officials. We also  attended an international conference and DOE workshops on recycling  technologies and reviewed pertinent documents delivered by witnesses to  and issued by the Blue Ribbon Commission. In addition, we interviewed  representatives from the six nuclear industry groups that signed contracts  with DOE in 2010 to provide advice and information on its ongoing and  planned R&D. We also spoke with representatives from a nonprobability  sample of two nuclear utility companies out of the 26 operating in the  United States; the Nuclear Energy Institute, a policy organization for the  nuclear energy and technologies industry; and the Electric Power  Research Institute, an independent, nonprofit organization that provides  R&D relating to the generation, delivery, and use of electricity. Because  we used a nonprobability sample of nuclear utility companies to speak  with, the information we obtained from them cannot be generalized to all  nuclear utility companies, but the interviews we had with utility company  representatives provided us with information on the perspectives of  nuclear utility companies.
To obtain information on the operating experiences of reprocessing and  recycling spent nuclear fuel in France and the United Kingdom, we  reviewed relevant documents about their nuclear power systems and  visited these countries to obtain additional documents and interview  government, nuclear industry, and utility representatives who oversee and  manage the reprocessing and recycling infrastructures. We selected  France and the United Kingdom because they are among the few  countries that have decades of experience in reprocessing and recycling  spent nuclear fuel. We observed the operations of facilities in these  countries that reprocess spent nuclear fuel and that fabricate MOX fuel. In  addition, we spoke with officials from selected international nuclear  organizations: the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for  Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD-NEA), the International  Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the World Nuclear Association, to  obtain an international perspective on reprocessing and recycling spent  nuclear fuel. We also interviewed selected subject matter experts in  France and the United Kingdom on these countries’ experiences with  reprocessing and recycling.
We conducted this performance audit from May 2010 through October  2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing  standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to  obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for  our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe  that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings  and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Appendix I describes our  scope and methodology in more detail.
subsections: section_title: Background
paragraphs: This section discusses (1) nuclear fuel assemblies and their use, (2) the  composition of spent nuclear fuel, (3) nuclear fuel cycles, (4) goals to  minimize the risks of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, and (5)  technology readiness assessments to measure and communicate the  risks of using technology in first-of-a-kind applications.
subsections: section_title: Nuclear Fuel Assemblies and Their Use
paragraphs: Hundreds of nuclear fuel assemblies—bundles of long metal tubes filled  with enriched uranium fuel pellets—form the core of a typical nuclear  power reactor. Reactors produce energy when uranium atoms split  (fission) into smaller elements, called fission products. Some of the  uranium atoms do not split but rather transmute into elements with atomic  weights heavier than uranium, such as neptunium, plutonium, americium,  and curium. With the buildup of fission products in the enriched uranium,  the fuel loses its ability to sustain a nuclear reaction, and the fuel  assemblies are then replaced with new fuel. Removed assemblies  contain spent nuclear fuel, the radiation from which, without protective  shielding, can kill a person directly exposed to it within minutes or  increase the risk of cancer in people exposed to smaller doses.
section_title: Composition of Spent Nuclear Fuel
paragraphs: Figure 1 shows the composition of spent nuclear fuel.
Spent nuclear fuel includes only the fuel components and not the  assemblies used to contain these components. As shown in the figure,  the fuel components of the spent fuel are uranium, plutonium, minor  actinides, and fission products. Minor actinides are a group of transuranic  by-products produced in nuclear reactor operation that are major  contributors to the long-lived hazards of radioactive waste. The term  transuranic generally applies to radioactive material containing  radionuclides (radioactive elements) with atomic numbers higher than 92  (uranium’s atomic number) and half-lives longer than 20 years in  concentrations exceeding 100 nanocuries (a measure of radioactivity) per  gram. Some fission products, such as cesium, strontium, iodine,  technetium, and other fission products are radioactive and can remain  dangerous for hundreds to hundreds of thousands or millions of years.  Stable fission products do not emit radiation.
As the figure shows, uranium is the primary component in spent nuclear  fuel. Uranium and plutonium are part of a group of elements known as  actinides—the 15 chemical elements on the periodic table with atomic  numbers from 89 to 103, actinium through lawrencium—and are also  called major actinides. Major actinides are fissile—they easily undergo  fission when hit by a neutron of any energy. Minor actinides consist  primarily of neptunium, americium, and curium. Unlike major actinides,  minor actinides can be made to fission only when hit by a neutron with  high enough energy. Both major and minor actinides pose health and  environmental risks, some for hundreds of thousands of years. The  remaining component of the material in spent nuclear fuel is fission  products, primarily cesium, strontium, iodine, and technetium; and stable  fission products. Some fission products, such as cesium and strontium,  pose environmental risks for hundreds of years after being removed from  a reactor, while iodine and technetium can remain hazardous for  hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Other fission products are  stable and no longer emit radiation.
section_title: Nuclear Fuel Cycles
paragraphs: The term “fuel cycle” may either denote the general process of preparing,  fissioning, and disposing of spent nuclear fuel or one of potentially  hundreds of specific processes and combinations of technologies that  may be used to carry out this process. The details of a specific fuel cycle  include the type of fuel, the level of uranium enrichment, the type of  nuclear reactor, and the methods for reprocessing, recycling, and/or  disposing of spent fuel. After a period of operation, usually every 18  months, U.S. nuclear reactors generally replace some of their fuel and  store the spent fuel immersed in pools of water or move them into dry  storage containers.
As we recently reported, the current nuclear fuel cycle used in most U.S.  reactors presents several challenges, including the lack of a geologic  repository for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel. DOE is  proposing to select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles that  could address this and other challenges. DOE’s R&D plan defined  sustainable fuel cycles as those that would better utilize uranium  resources, maximize energy generation, minimize waste generation,  improve safety, and limit proliferation and terrorism risks. To achieve this  objective, DOE proposes R&D on technologies for three categories of fuel  cycles:    Once-through fuel cycle—technologies to more efficiently use uranium  than the current open fuel cycle while reducing the amount of  radioactive waste generated.    Modified open fuel cycle—technologies that more efficiently use  uranium, minimize the amount of radioactive waste generated, and  reduce proliferation and terrorism risks using limited or no  reprocessing or recycling.    Full recycle fuel cycle—technologies to repeatedly reprocess and  recycle nuclear fuels, thereby minimizing the amount of radioactive  waste generated and reducing proliferation and terrorism risks.
section_title: Goals to Minimize Risks of Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism
paragraphs: According to DOE’s R&D plan, it is important to ensure that the benefits  of nuclear power can be obtained in a manner that limits nuclear  proliferation and terrorism risks. The plan states that the Office of Nuclear  Energy is responsible for providing technical expertise and leadership on  nuclear technology to the federal agencies with overall responsibility for  U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy. These agencies include NNSA, as  well as the Department of State, and the Nuclear Regulatory  Commission—responsible for overseeing the nation’s 104 commercial  nuclear reactors—and other organizations. According to an NNSA official,  the goals of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy are to:  limit the spread of technologies to enrich uranium and to reprocess  spent nuclear fuel;  strengthen the international safeguards system, which includes  international agreements to protect against misuse of nuclear  technologies and international design standards for nuclear facilities;    halt the build-up, and eventually draw down, of stocks of separated    develop nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies that have  lower proliferation and terrorism risks, while recognizing that other  factors contribute to proliferation and terrorism risks, such as the  country in which a nuclear facility is located.
In pursuing these goals, NNSA distinguishes between nuclear  proliferation and terrorism risks. According to a national laboratory subject  matter expert, assessment of proliferation risks considers whether nations  that have nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes, such as nuclear power,  might divert and misuse these facilities to generate material to build  nuclear weapons. International safeguards under the auspices of the  IAEA are used to guard against these risks. Generally, because of the  technology involved, NNSA considers that proliferation risks will occur  over an extended period of time. In contrast, terrorism risks come from  groups not necessarily associated with a particular nation. Threats  associated with terrorism include the theft of nuclear material and the  sabotage of nuclear facilities.
section_title: Technology Readiness Assessments
paragraphs: As we previously reported, technology readiness assessment provides a  systematic way to determine the extent to which a technology critical to  ensuring a project’s successful operation is sufficiently developed for its  intended purpose. Critical technologies are those that are essential to a  project’s success and are either new or are being applied in a new  manner. DOE has begun to assess the readiness of technologies for  recycling spent nuclear fuel using technology readiness levels, a method  pioneered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for  measuring and communicating the risks associated with critical  technologies in first-of-a-kind applications. Using a scale from one (basic  principles observed) through nine (total system used successfully in  project operations), readiness levels show the extent to which  technologies have been demonstrated to work as intended. A higher  readiness level indicates a new technology has better demonstrated its  suitability relative to a specific set of criteria, and a decision to proceed  with an acquisition of the technology will accordingly be lower risk.  Demonstration of new technologies at successively larger scales— laboratory scale, engineering/pilot scale and full/prototypical scale—is  one way to increase their technology readiness, thereby mitigating the  risk of schedule or cost overruns in the design and construction of  commercial-scale facilities and limiting investment in potentially ineffective  technologies. As we have previously reported, GAO considers level  seven (subsystem demonstrated in an operational environment) to be an  acceptable level of readiness before proceeding with final design and  committing to definitive schedule and cost estimates.
section_title: DOE’s R&D Plan Lays Out a Systematic Approach to Selecting and Demonstrating Nuclear Fuel Cycles but Lacks Important Details
paragraphs: DOE’s R&D plan details a systematic approach—that is, the use of  scientific methods and engineering principles—to select and eventually  demonstrate nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies. However,  the plan does not explain the current readiness of the critical technologies  and the estimated time and costs of further developing these  technologies; it also does not explain how DOE will collaborate with the  nuclear industry and other countries with experience in conducting  nuclear R&D in achieving its goals.
subsections: section_title: DOE’s R&D Plan Relies on a Systematic Approach to Selecting Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Their Technologies for Further R&D
paragraphs: DOE’s plan lays out R&D objectives for various technical areas and  schedules for achieving them.  Under the plan, DOE has the goal of  selecting nuclear fuel cycle options and associated technologies by 2020  and demonstrating them by 2050. Throughout this selection process, the  plan states that DOE will rely on a science-based approach in conducting  its R&D. This approach will involve small-scale experiments, theory  development, and computer modeling and simulation. The plan states  that DOE will develop theories and use the knowledge and data obtained  through experiments to, among other things, develop and validate  modeling and simulation tools to examine nuclear fuel cycles and  associated technologies.
DOE is also following a dual-path approach for nuclear fuel cycle R&D— simultaneously pursuing evolutionary and revolutionary tracks across all  of its technical R&D areas. That is, according to DOE’s R&D plan, the  department is pursuing both advancements of existing fuel cycles and  high-risk, high-payoff technologies that, if successful, could replace all or  part of the evolutionary technologies. For example, DOE is pursuing a  way to economically extract uranium from seawater, which it would  consider a revolutionary breakthrough nuclear fuel cycle option, if it were  to succeed.
To integrate its R&D efforts to select sustainable nuclear fuel cycles, DOE  is relying on a systems engineering approach. According to DOE’s  systems engineering guide, a systems engineering approach is an  approach that supports management in clearly defining the mission or  problem; managing system functions and requirements; identifying and  managing risk; establishing bases for informed decision-making; and  verifying that products and services meet customer needs.
DOE’s plan for developing a sustainable nuclear fuel cycle over the next 4  decades is divided into the following eight technical R&D areas:    Systems analysis. Development of computer modeling and simulation  to improve understanding of the interdependences between nuclear  fuel cycle subsystems and associated technologies.    Fuel resources. Research to better understand the availability of  uranium and other nuclear fuel materials to help inform decisions on  choosing nuclear fuel cycles.    Fuel development. Research to examine a wide variety of nuclear fuel  to support multiple nuclear fuel cycle options.    Separations. Development of new separations methods (i.e.,  reprocessing) that enable the recycling and/or transmutation of key  nuclear fuel constituents. These methods must be economical (i.e.,  involve minimal processing), minimize waste streams and volumes,  and enable effective safeguarding of fissile material.    Waste forms. Development of new technologies for mixing high-level  radioactive waste with different materials, such as ceramics, glasses,  glass-ceramics, and metals to derive a waste form that can maintain  stability and durability under long-term exposure to high levels of  radiation, among other things, and to understand the performance of  these waste forms in complex geologic settings.    Storage and disposal. Research to identify alternatives to current  practices and the development of technologies to enable the storage,  transportation, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and wastes  generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles.    Transmutation technology. Development of systems, including nuclear  reactors, that would transmute radioactive materials recovered from  spent fuel to improve the use of the nuclear fuel and significantly  reduce the radioactivity associated with these materials.    Materials, protection, control, and accountability technology. The  development of new processes and technologies to account for and  protect nuclear materials from proliferation and terrorism risks.
In addition to these technical R&D areas, in 2010, DOE began to evaluate  fuel cycle options in order to guide its R&D program. DOE’s R&D plan  defines the following eight criteria to be used in evaluating the desirability  of sustainable nuclear fuel cycle options:    Nuclear waste management. The weight and volume of the hazardous  material generated from a nuclear fuel cycle and the implications of  these factors on disposition of the waste.    Resources. The effect of a nuclear fuel cycle on the availability of  nuclear fuel resources over the long term, and the disposal needs  associated with the fuel cycle approach that must be considered in  light of the expected availability of disposal sites.    Proliferation risks. How the following three factors associated with a  nuclear fuel cycle could determine the overall proliferation and  terrorism risks of that cycle: the extent to which (1) the cycle  generates material that could be easily handled, (2) technologies are  used that could produce weapons-usable material, such as uranium  enrichment and reprocessing technologies, and (3) enrichment and  reprocessing could be protected from misuse.    Safety. Difficulty of developing fuel cycles that are capable of  obtaining approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for safe  operations and for the disposal of radioactive waste from a nuclear  fuel cycle.    Security. Whether physical security for a nuclear fuel cycle can be  provided that could prevent terrorists or others from gaining access to  the material.    Economics. The life-cycle costs of a nuclear fuel cycle, including costs  for designing, constructing, operating, dismantling, and disposing of  nuclear facilities and associated wastes.    Environmental impact. The environmental impacts of a nuclear fuel  cycle, including the impacts from constructing, operating, dismantling,  and disposing of nuclear facilities and associated wastes.    Technology readiness. The time needed and the cost of developing  the technologies associated with a nuclear fuel cycle.
In 2010, DOE initiated a pilot screening process to systematically  evaluate nuclear fuel cycle options and associated technologies for each  of the three categories of fuel cycles to help guide long-term R&D. This  process used systems engineering principles to develop and demonstrate  a methodology for comparing alternative nuclear fuel cycles with the  once-through cycle using the eight criteria above. In August 2010, DOE  held two workshops to seek input from representatives of the nuclear  industry and subject matter experts on this methodology.
After reaching consensus from workshop participants on a revised set of  evaluation criteria and metrics for the proposed methodology, DOE  convened a panel of national laboratory experts to apply it, starting with a  list of 863 nuclear fuel cycle options and their associated technologies  resulting from prior DOE R&D efforts. As reported to DOE, the laboratory  experts revised this list by categorizing options according to key  characteristics—such as the number and type of reactors used, the fuel  type, and the need for reprocessing. By consolidating options that were  similar, the experts ultimately produced a list of 266 nuclear fuel cycle  options and associated technologies: 100 were associated with the once- through cycle, 60 with the modified open cycle, and 106 with the full  recycling fuel cycle category. The laboratory experts then weighted a  subset of DOE’s evaluation criteria to determine which options were the  most promising for developing sustainable nuclear fuel cycles, which had  modest potential, and which would provide only minor benefit and thus  would be considered not worth long-term R&D investments. Table 1  shows the results of this analysis. As the table shows, 83 of 103, or 81  percent, of the most promising options fell under the full recycle category  and 24 of 50, or 48 percent, of the options with only a minor benefit fell  under the modified open fuel cycle category. The experts noted that these  findings can be helpful in focusing DOE’s R&D efforts.
In January 2011, the screening process methodology and results were  peer reviewed by an independent panel of four national laboratory experts  and two consultants. According to the panel, the screening process and  its conclusions were “reasonable and useful for a pilot project” and the  results will help inform DOE on what R&D efforts should be dropped and  others that should continue irrespective of shifts in policy. However, this  panel also found that the proposed methodology had many inherent  limitations, such as a lack of nonproliferation criteria and performance  metrics, and suggested specific areas for improvement. Suggested  improvements included using experts independent of the national  laboratories to determine if the results can be replicated; developing  metrics that consider the effects of the entire fuel cycle, such as mining,  uranium enrichment, and nuclear waste disposal; and further developing  metrics for technology readiness and proliferation and terrorism risks.
In June 2011, the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee, a group of  experts established to provide independent advice to DOE, provided  comments on its review of the pilot screening process. The committee  noted that some of the evaluation criteria, such as proliferation risk, are  not appropriate for advanced systems and innovative technologies that  are not close to deployment and not well understood. As such, the  committee suggested caution in applying the evaluation criteria at the  early stages of development to avoid prematurely ruling out some fuel  cycle options and their associated technologies for further R&D. The  committee also stated that because the pilot screening process results  are affected by the weights given to the evaluation criteria, and the  determination of these weights is more a policy issue than a technical  issue, DOE needs to be involved in setting the relative weights for each  evaluation criteria. In addition, the committee suggested that DOE obtain  the comments from the nuclear industry on the process. According to  DOE officials, the office has begun to take actions to follow up on the  suggestions of the peer review panel, the Nuclear Energy Advisory  Committee, and other sources in planning to conduct a formal nuclear  fuel cycle screening process during fiscal year 2013.
DOE’s R&D plan acknowledged that the recommendations of the Blue  Ribbon Commission might affect DOE’s R&D direction. In its July 2011  draft report to the Secretary of Energy, the commission found that no  currently available or reasonably foreseeable reactors and fuel cycle  technologies—including advances in reprocessing and recycling—have  the potential to fundamentally alter the waste management challenge the  United States faces over at least the next several decades. As a result,  the commission concluded, it is “premature” for the United States to now  commit irreversibly to a closed fuel cycle because of the large  uncertainties about the merits and commercial viability of different fuel  cycles and technologies. Nevertheless, the commission also concluded  that the United States should continue to pursue a program of nuclear  energy R&D, both to improve the safety and performance of existing  nuclear energy technologies and to develop new technologies that could  offer significant advantages in, among other things, safety, cost, waste  management, and nonproliferation and counterterrorism.
In discussing DOE’s R&D plan, the commission stated that it provides a  good science-based step toward the development of an effective, long- term R&D program. It recommended that DOE update its nuclear energy  R&D roadmap once every 4 years and that in doing so this process  should be informed by broader strategic planning efforts, such as DOE’s  recently launched quadrennial technology and energy review processes.
section_title: DOE Plans to Assess Technology Readiness, but It Has Not Explained the Current Readiness of Fuel Cycle Technologies or the Estimated Time and Cost Associated with Their Development
paragraphs: DOE’s R&D plan states that it is necessary to assess the readiness of  technologies associated with the nuclear fuel cycles in selecting fuel cycle  options for further review. According to the R&D plan, DOE is to assess  the status of the technologies associated with the different nuclear fuel  cycle options being considered and estimate the time and costs of further  developing them. The plan also states that DOE will:  continue to evaluate the technological readiness of fuel cycle options  and determine the readiness of these options to differentiate among  them and to focus development in order to meet the R&D plan’s  schedules and goals;    give priority to R&D on technologies associated with the modified  open fuel cycle because of their relative immaturity compared with the  technologies associated with once-through and full recycle fuel cycles;  and  seek to raise the readiness of the technologies associated with the  modified open fuel cycle category in order to make meaningful  comparisons among the three nuclear fuel cycle categories, and to  further narrow the range of fuel cycle options.
These proposed actions would help advance DOE’s goals for developing  nuclear fuel cycle options, but neither the R&D plan nor the pilot  screening process describes the current readiness of the fuel cycle  options and associated technologies under consideration, the estimated  time or cost for further developing them, or relate readiness to schedules  and goals. As we have reported, assessing the readiness of technology is  a best practice to help control schedule and costs. It may be premature  to assess technology readiness levels for all the fuel cycle options and  associated technologies under consideration, however, without this  information, DOE has not made clear the magnitude of the effort  necessary to develop these technologies nor the costs associated with  doing so.
section_title: DOE’s R&D Plan Identifies the Need to Collaborate with the Nuclear Industry but Does Not Include a Long-term Collaboration Strategy
paragraphs: DOE’s R&D plan identifies the importance of collaborating with the  nuclear industry—the ultimate user of any nuclear fuel cycle and  associated technologies that are developed—and the department has  made some efforts to obtain industry advice, but the plan does not include  a long-term strategy for how to conduct such collaboration. According to  the R&D plan, the federal government is responsible for managing  disposal of spent nuclear fuel, but the nuclear industry will be the likely  user of any technologies developed by the government to better manage  this fuel. Hence, the plan states that the nuclear industry is a necessary  partner in DOE’s R&D effort, both to suggest specific challenges to solve  and to offer perspective on proposed nuclear fuel cycle options.
As of June 2011, DOE had obtained industry views by contracting with six  consortia of nuclear industry companies. In December 2009, DOE issued  a request for advice and assistance from companies with experience in  advancing nuclear energy concepts through the licensing and deployment  of full-scale production facilities. The request also stated that DOE was  seeking studies, analyses, evaluations, and engineering and technical  services from the nuclear industry. DOE received proposals from 14  nuclear industry groups and contracted with 6 of them in June 2010  through a 5-year, $30 million contract—known as an Indefinite Delivery  and Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) agreement. Through the ID/IQ agreement,  DOE can issue a request for information, known as a task order, from one  or more of the industry groups, and each group may choose to participate  or not in each task order. As of June 2011, DOE had issued five task  orders, for a total of $5 million paid to the industry groups. Four of the  industry groups participated in the first task order by, among other things,  providing input through conference calls, face-to-face meetings, attending  an annual meeting, and submitting reports that identified technical areas  for nuclear fuel cycle R&D efforts. The face-to-face meetings have  included workshops DOE held from July 2010 through January 2011,  according to DOE documents we reviewed. These workshops focused on  different aspects of DOE’s eight technical R&D areas. Representatives  from industry groups told us that the ID/IQ agreements are an effective  mechanism to solicit their input on these R&D areas in the short-term.  However, some of these representatives told us that it was unclear how  DOE is using the information the industry provided during workshops and  in response to task orders. Moreover, DOE officials did not provide  information to us on how it was using industry input.
Nevertheless, DOE’s R&D plan does not include a long-term strategy for  working with the nuclear industry to ensure acceptance and use the  technologies DOE develops. The plan has established milestones  through 2050, but its current contracts with nuclear industry partners end  in May 2012, with an option to extend the contracts until May 2015. The  R&D plan provides no detail on how DOE might collaborate with the  nuclear industry beyond these dates. According to our analysis of the  report on the pilot screening process, DOE stated that, as it continues to  develop its methodology for selecting nuclear fuel cycles, it will need to  consider evaluation criteria not addressed in the initial screening study  that will be important in selecting a nuclear fuel cycle or cycles that  industry finds acceptable. Specifically, the report identified the need for  broader stakeholder participation, including the nuclear industry, in  refining the evaluation criteria, particularly those associated with  economics, such as the life-cycle costs of a nuclear fuel cycle.
According to the peer review panel for the initial screening process study,  the evaluation criteria did not include any incentives for industry to buy or  operate facilities that incorporate any of the fuel cycles that DOE may  select and demonstrate. The peer review panel also noted that such  incentives for industry are essential. In January 2011, two of the industry  groups that participated in the first task order suggested a number of  improvements to the collaborative process, including involving industry in  periodic peer reviews of DOE’s R&D efforts and having industry work with  the department to determine the point where DOE funding for technology  development should stop and industry funding should begin. DOE officials  explained to us that they issued operating procedures in May 2011 that  more specifically identified how DOE will collaborate with the nuclear  industry under the ID/IQ agreement. These officials explained that the  operating procedures are intended to ensure that any new task orders  issued under the current ID/IQ agreement will indicate how industry input  will help DOE achieve the milestones in its R&D plan. Nevertheless, DOE  R&D plan does not provide a strategy for how it will collaborate with the  nuclear industry that addresses industry concerns for its involvement over  the long term. Without a collaboration strategy to sustain the nuclear  industry as a partner in its R&D, DOE may be at risk of developing fuel  cycle options that industry does not use. As we have previously reported,  collaborative efforts can be enhanced and sustained by engaging in key  practices, including (1) defining and articulating a common outcome;   (2) establishing mutually reinforcing or joint strategies; (3) identifying and  addressing needs by leveraging resources; (4) agreeing on roles and  responsibilities; (5) establishing compatible policies, procedures, and  other means to operate across agency boundaries; (6) developing  mechanisms to monitor, evaluate, and report on results; and   (7) reinforcing accountability for collaborative efforts through performance  management systems. While our previous report focused on collaboration  among federal agencies, we believe that the key practices identified are  relevant to the need for improved collaboration between DOE and the  nuclear industry in developing nuclear fuel cycles and associated  technologies. We note, however, that DOE has an independent role in  deciding on a nuclear fuel cycle and associated technologies that best  serve U.S. interests in minimizing waste and reducing proliferation and  terrorism risks.
section_title: DOE’s R&D Plan Acknowledges the Need for International Collaboration but Does Not Specify How DOE Will Use Existing Collaborative Agreements with Other Countries
paragraphs: According to DOE’s R&D plan, DOE recognizes that international R&D  collaboration, at least in the short term, is essential for meeting its  objective of developing sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. The plan states  that these collaborations may help accelerate technology development  and temporarily fill some of the gaps—such as the absence of fast  reactors—in the United States’ current nuclear R&D infrastructure.  While the plan does not discuss in detail any mechanisms for fostering  international collaborative R&D efforts to develop sustainable nuclear fuel  cycles, DOE officials told us about the collaborative agreements they  currently have with other countries. The principal forums that DOE uses  for its international R&D collaboration are the following:    Multilateral agreements. DOE, along with other agencies, represents  the United States as a member country in several multilateral nuclear  energy forums, including IAEA, International Framework for Nuclear  Energy Cooperation (IFNEC), Generation IV International Forum, and  the Nuclear Energy Agency. For example, the Generation IV  International Forum—chartered in 2000 with nine member countries  and supported by the Nuclear Energy Agency—allows countries to  collaborate on testing the feasibility and performance of advanced  nuclear systems in order to make them available for industrial  deployment by 2030. In this forum, France, Japan, and the United  States, are collaborating on two of six prototype nuclear reactor  designs, the very-high temperature reactor and the sodium-cooled  fast reactor.    Trilateral agreement. France, Japan, and the United States are in the  process of establishing a trilateral agreement to develop reprocessing  technologies for spent nuclear fuel. Under this agreement, DOE will  be allowed access to a French facility to fabricate new forms of  nuclear fuel and a Japanese nuclear reactor test facility to recycle  spent nuclear fuel. One objective of the agreement is to demonstrate  full recycling of nuclear fuel in a fast reactor in Japan. According to a  DOE official, this trilateral agreement has been under negotiation for  more than 2 years.    Bilateral agreements. DOE’s International Nuclear Energy Research  Initiative, established in 2001, is a mechanism for entering into  bilateral agreements on nuclear energy R&D. DOE enters into these  bilateral agreements to (1) develop advanced concepts and scientific  breakthroughs in nuclear energy technology, (2) promote  collaboration with international agencies and research organizations  to improve the development of nuclear energy, and (3) promote and  maintain a nuclear science and engineering infrastructure in order to  resolve future technical challenges. The goal is to achieve a 50-50  matching contribution from each partner country. DOE currently has  active agreements with Canada, France, and the Republic of Korea,  as well as with the European Union.    Action plans. DOE has begun to develop action plans to jointly  conduct R&D on and share knowledge about key nuclear facilities and  technologies. DOE currently has action plans with China, India,  Japan, and Russia. These plans identify mutually agreed areas of  cooperation and lay out a schedule of events, such as workshops,  milestones, and deliverables. For example, the United States has  agreed to work with each of these countries separately on developing  fast reactors.
These forums that DOE uses for international R&D collaboration indicate  that DOE has many opportunities to cooperate with other countries to  develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. For example, DOE’s R&D plan  states that it will share research results and leverage U.S. R&D  investments with France, Japan, and Russia that are also conducting  work on transmutation technologies, which involve using fast reactors to  transform highly radioactive material into a less radioactive material. The  R&D plan further states that DOE has modeling and simulation  capabilities that could be shared with other countries, and that it envisions  restarting a nuclear reactor test facility at the Idaho National Laboratory in  5 to 6 years, which could also be shared with other countries.
However, DOE’s R&D plan does not fully explain how it will take  advantage of these collaborative agreements to advance its efforts to  select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. This is  particularly important because these collaborations could help the United  States use research facilities in other countries, such as reprocessing and  fuel fabrication facilities, as well as advanced reactors. According to  DOE’s R&D plan, DOE does not currently have adequate nuclear  research facilities for developing advanced fuel cycle technologies, and  DOE officials estimated that it would take 10 to 15 years to design and  construct them. As a result, DOE envisions building two major research  facilities—a fast test reactor and a fuel cycle laboratory to test advanced  reprocessing and nuclear fuel technologies. DOE has already requested  through its ID/IQ agreement preliminary conceptual planning for a nuclear  fuel cycle research laboratory. However, as table 2 shows, some of these  facilities are already available or are being constructed in other countries,  and DOE’s plan does not indicate how it might use any of these facilities  to further its R&D effort. DOE officials agreed that using the resources of  some of these facilities in other countries would help DOE in meeting its  R&D objectives, but these officials also explained that obtaining access to  these facilities is limited and could constrain ability to conduct R&D in a  timely manner.
DOE’s R&D plan also does not address how the department will decide  between building nuclear research facilities, such as a fast test reactor,  and using its existing international collaborative agreements to gain  access to planned or existing facilities in other countries. International  R&D collaboration has broad support from the Electric Power Research  Institute, the Nuclear Energy Agency, and the Blue Ribbon Commission  as a way to share the cost of designing and building these facilities.  Without specifying how it will use its existing collaborative agreements  with other countries, NE may miss opportunities to use the expertise and  R&D facilities in these other countries to more efficiently and effectively  meet its R&D objectives.
section_title: DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy Is Working to Understand and Minimize Proliferation and Terrorism Risks but Faces Challenges and Has Not Formally Coordinated with NNSA
paragraphs: As its R&D plan details, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy has efforts  underway to better understand and minimize nuclear proliferation and  terrorism risks and recognizes the challenges associated with these  efforts. However, the office has not developed a formal coordination  mechanism with NNSA, which is necessary to avoid overlap and  duplication in minimizing proliferation and terrorism risks.
subsections: section_title: DOE Has Undertaken Three Efforts to Better Understand and Minimize Risks of Proliferation and Terrorism, but Faces Challenges
paragraphs: In accordance with its R&D plan, DOE has described three efforts  underway to better understand and minimize the proliferation and terrorism  risks associated with nuclear fuel cycles: (1) developing and validating a  methodology to assess these risks, (2) safeguarding nuclear material, and  (3) participating in IFNEC to advance U.S. interests in minimizing these  risks.
According to DOE officials, the department is in the early stages of  developing a methodology to examine the proliferation and terrorism risks  associated with different types of nuclear fuel cycles as part of its effort to  select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles. DOE held a  workshop in February 2010 with subject matter experts to obtain their  views on what information the department would need to assess nuclear  proliferation and terrorism risks related to nuclear fuel cycle options. DOE  also held a second workshop in July 2010 that some of the same experts  attended, as well as representatives from the nuclear industry and  academia to obtain views on its R&D plan. According to DOE officials, its  R&D efforts will expand on the internationally developed methodology to  assess proliferation and terrorism risks.
In its R&D plan, DOE identified four challenges to developing its own  methodology to assess the proliferation and terrorism risks of different  nuclear fuel cycles:    Quantifying the intent and shifting motivations of adversaries. The  plan stated that it is difficult to develop mathematical methods for  quantifying human behavior to predict how adversaries may choose to  act. It is also difficult to predict when they might modify their choices  based on the actions and behavior of the defenders of the facilities  chosen for attack and the outcome of events in relation to these  incidents.    Addressing threats that change over time. The plan stated that threats  or perceived threats can change drastically over time because of new  information or other factors. When the time horizon of a risk  assessment takes place over many decades, anticipating future  threats presents major challenges.    Analyzing the potential effects of policy and technology changes.
Because it will take decades to select and demonstrate nuclear fuel  cycles, the plan stated that it will be challenging to analyze policies  and technical measures that can change in ways that are difficult to  predict.    Estimating risks from technologies that have not yet been developed  or deployed. The plan stated that when new technologies are  involved, it is difficult to assess the problems these technologies may  present before they become operational.
DOE officials told us that once the department develops a risk  assessment methodology, it will need to validate it. DOE’s R&D plan  recognizes three challenges for validating the methodology to assess  proliferation and terrorism risks:    Lack of empirical data on the vulnerabilities of nuclear facilities. To  address this challenge, the plan states that DOE will gather empirical  data from various sources, such as the Department of Homeland  Security and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.    Lack of information on nuclear fuel cycle options. There is currently  insufficient information on all nuclear fuel cycle options to validate  their risks through an assessment methodology, according to a  national laboratory expert. To overcome this challenge, DOE plans to  apply its risk assessment methodology to theoretical nuclear fuel  cycles that might be deployed under a set of assumed conditions.
Impediments to obtaining external peer review of the methodology. To  help validate the risk assessment methodology, the plan states that  DOE will conduct an external peer review. According to DOE officials,  the methodology is likely to rely in part on classified data, but few  outside, independent experts in such methodologies have the security  clearance that would be needed to review the methodology. To  address this challenge, according to a DOE official, DOE has  contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct an  external peer review of the methodology under secure conditions,  which is estimated to be completed by the end of 2012.
Recognizing these challenges, DOE officials told us that any resulting risk  assessment methodology should not be the sole basis for assessing  whether a particular nuclear fuel cycle would reduce proliferation and  terrorism risks.
According to the R&D plan, DOE faces two primary challenges in its  efforts to help safeguard nuclear material. First, it faces the challenge of  developing new concepts for nuclear fuels and nuclear reactors that are  cost effective and reliable while producing radioactive materials that are  less attractive for proliferation and terrorism. To address this challenge,  DOE plans to integrate safety, safeguards, and security features into the  design of the nuclear fuel cycle technologies, starting from the earliest  conceptual design stages. Second, DOE faces the challenge of  designing equipment that can measure and monitor nuclear materials as  they move through the different stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. Current  technology relies on a time-consuming approach of taking samples of  nuclear materials, including lab analysis, which does not allow real-time  tracking of the material to prevent diversion, theft or loss of nuclear  material. To address this challenge, DOE is continuing to develop  technologies to track nuclear material, in close coordination with NNSA,  the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, IAEA, and other international  partners.
According to DOE’s R&D plan, DOE participates in the following three  IFNEC efforts to reduce opportunities for nuclear proliferation and  terrorism:    Nuclear fuel services. Under this effort, countries with reprocessing  capabilities could receive spent nuclear fuel from utilities in other  countries, reprocess it, fabricate new nuclear fuel, and send this new  fuel back to these utilities.    Comprehensive nuclear fuel services. Comprehensive nuclear fuel  services is an approach in which commercially based nuclear fuel  cycle services—including fuel leasing, regional or internationally  managed interim storage, and disposition of used fuel with the  supplier or a third party—are made available on a global basis to  countries meeting their nonproliferation responsibilities.    Participation in the nonproliferation regime. Under this effort, DOE  provides leadership and technical contributions in international forums  associated with nonproliferation.
To date, DOE officials have attended IFNEC meetings in France, Italy,  Japan, and Jordan. Thus far, several reports have been issued at the  IFNEC working group and ministerial levels, including statements by  IFNEC member countries and working group reports on issues such as  radioactive waste management and the role of the nuclear industry in  ensuring nuclear fuel cycle services.
The Office of Nuclear Energy faces a challenge in supporting U.S.  nonproliferation goals through its participation in IFNEC, because the  office does not have lead responsibility for developing, implementing, and  supporting international frameworks and institutions. NNSA and other  federal agencies have lead responsibility; thus, the office has limited  ability to develop, implement, and support international frameworks.
section_title: Office of Nuclear Energy Has Not Established a Formal Mechanism for Coordinating with NNSA on Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism Issues to Avoid Overlap and Duplication
paragraphs: The Office of Nuclear Energy has taken some actions to address  proliferation issues as it moves forward in its efforts to select and  demonstrate nuclear fuel cycle options, but the office has not developed a  formal mechanism for coordinating its efforts to minimize proliferation and  terrorism risks with NNSA, which has lead responsibility within DOE for  nonproliferation. According to DOE’s R&D plan, the Office of Nuclear  Energy is responsible for providing technical expertise and leadership on  nuclear technology to the U.S. agencies with overall responsibility for  nuclear nonproliferation policy. According to Office of Nuclear Energy  and NNSA officials, R&D efforts on understanding and minimizing  proliferation and terrorism risks should not be separate from and must  support NNSA’s work in trying to meet U.S. nonproliferation goals.
The Office of Nuclear Energy has a number of ways in which it informally  coordinating with NNSA. According to DOE’s R&D plans, the Office of  Nuclear Energy has informally worked with NNSA largely through long- standing relationships among researchers and managers that cut across  organizational boundaries. According to NNSA officials, this informal  coordination is in part possible because the Office of Nuclear Energy and  NNSA use the same subject matter experts at the national laboratories.  However, these officials noted that when officials and subject matter  experts retire or leave either organization, this informal sharing of  information may not continue.
Office of Nuclear Energy officials explained that their office has not  established a formal coordination mechanism with NNSA because the  office has traditionally focused on domestic nuclear issues and NNSA  focuses on the international aspects of nuclear proliferation and terrorism  risks. However, DOE’s R&D plan now includes work that has international  implications because the nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies  under consideration by the Office of Nuclear Energy might be adopted by  other countries. DOE’s R&D plan discusses the need to complete formal  coordination mechanisms, such as a memorandum of understanding or  coordination committees between the Office of Nuclear Energy and  NNSA to coordinate work and to avoid overlap. Office of Nuclear Energy  officials told us that they have formed some coordinating groups with  NNSA and have begun to discuss developing a memorandum of  understanding, but that they have not decided on how best to integrate  their R&D with NNSA’s nonproliferation efforts. As we have reported,  defining organizational roles and responsibilities in formal mechanisms  can help agencies strengthen their commitment to work collaboratively by  clarifying who will lead or participate in which activities and how decisions  will be made.
section_title: French and British Experiences in Reprocessing and Recycling Can Provide Insights for U.S. Decision Making
paragraphs: France and the United Kingdom’s experiences in developing and  operating reprocessing and recycling infrastructures can provide some  insights into the decisions DOE may need to make in selecting and  demonstrating nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies.
Reprocessing and Recycling Reduces the Need to Mine Uranium.  According to French government officials, reprocessing and recycling  plutonium and uranium reduces the need to mine uranium. The amount of  uranium needed for nuclear fuel in a reactor depends on how much MOX  fuel and reprocessed uranium fuel is used in the nuclear reactors that are  licensed for these fuels. According to a 2010 French government report,  the current reprocessing and recycling approach in France reduces the  amount of uranium needed for nuclear fuel by up to about 17 percent.  This report included input from AREVA—the French company responsible  for managing all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle, including constructing  and operating reprocessing and recycling facilities—and Electricité de  France (EdF)—the utility responsible for operating most of the country’s  commercial nuclear power reactors. The estimate in the report assumes  that the 22 French reactors that can use MOX fuel and the 4 French  reactors that can use reprocessed uranium fuel use the maximum amount  of these fuels—up to 30 percent MOX fuel and 100 percent reprocessed  uranium fuel in these reactors. According to French government  officials, if France were to recycle all of the reprocessed uranium and  plutonium it generates from reprocessing, it would further reduce the  amount of uranium needed for nuclear fuel by up to almost 25 percent.  According to United Kingdom officials, because the country has had  limited experience with using recycled nuclear fuels, it has achieved only  minimal savings of uranium from its reprocessing and recycling activities.
Recycling consumes some of the plutonium contained in spent nuclear  fuel. According to French government officials, recycling results in a net  reduction of plutonium. MOX fuel contains about 8.5 percent plutonium,  and spent MOX fuel contains about 6 percent plutonium, according to  these officials. These officials estimated that, in their current use of MOX  fuel, the annual overall quantity of plutonium generated is at least 2.5  metric tons lower than if the same reactors had used conventional  enriched uranium fuel. However, reactors that have been licensed to use  MOX fuel can only use up to 30 percent of this fuel in a reactor per  refueling; the remaining 70 percent or more of the fuel is conventional  enriched uranium fuel, which generates plutonium. According to AREVA  officials, the decrease of plutonium in MOX fuel is offset by the increase  in plutonium resulting from the use of conventional enriched uranium fuel  in the reactor. In addition, because France only uses as much plutonium  as it creates each year, recycling of plutonium in France does not reduce  its current inventory of 35 metric tons of nondefense plutonium. According  to AREVA officials, the new generation of nuclear reactors they are  developing are designed to use a higher percentage of MOX fuel and  thus more plutonium would be consumed and, in turn, less would be  generated.
The conditions for plutonium use are different in the United Kingdom  because it does not recycle plutonium. As a result, the United Kingdom’s  reprocessing of domestic spent nuclear fuel has resulted in an inventory  of 84 metric tons of nondefense plutonium. The United Kingdom plans to  store most of this plutonium until 2120, and it currently considers this  plutonium as having no value as an asset. However, the disposition of the  United Kingdom’s inventory is under review. As part of this ongoing  review, the United Kingdom government reported that the review is to  include an assessment of whether the plutonium should be reused as  MOX fuel in a new generation of nuclear reactors. The United Kingdom  government also reported that recycling plutonium as MOX fuel  consumes roughly one-third of the plutonium and significantly degrades  the remaining plutonium, making it less attractive for use in a nuclear  weapon but more expensive to reprocess a second time. In addition,  according to an official from the United Kingdom’s Royal Society, the  amount of time during which plutonium is maintained in a separated form  should be minimized by converting it to MOX fuel as soon as it is feasible  to do so, and nuclear reactors should be identified in advance to ensure  the use of this MOX fuel.
Reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel is likely to reduce the  space needed for a geologic repository, but the size of the reduction is  uncertain. Reprocessing and recycling is likely to reduce the space  needed for a repository compared with the once-through nuclear fuel  cycle because uranium and plutonium are reused rather than disposed of,  according to French government officials. On the other hand, subject  matter experts we spoke with said that the reduction in the amount of  repository space stemming from reprocessing and recycling would  depend on how much of the radioactive materials that France considers  reusable might ultimately require disposal in a geologic repository. The  materials considered reusable are primarily spent MOX fuel, spent  reprocessed uranium fuel, and plutonium. Because the disposition of  radioactive materials considered reusable is uncertain, a 2006 French law  requires, among other things, that the owners of this material, primarily  AREVA and EdF, study how they would manage it if it were later defined  as waste. According to the law, this may occur if the technologies  envisioned for reusing these materials, primarily fast reactors, do not  perform as anticipated or if the current reprocessing and recycling  processes are abandoned. In discussions leading up to this law, in 2005,  the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency (ANDRA)  prepared three scenarios for determining the size of the planned geologic  repository. In the first scenario, ANDRA estimated that the planned  repository would need about 2 square miles under current plans to  dispose of the reprocessing waste that requires geological disposal. In  the second scenario, ANDRA estimated that the repository would need  about 3.5 square miles if spent MOX fuel and spent reprocessed uranium  fuel were also disposed of. In the third scenario, ANDRA estimated that  the repository would have needed about 5.4 square miles if France had  never reprocessed spent fuel and instead had always relied on a once- through nuclear fuel cycle. However, these calculations do not include  waste stemming from the reprocessing and recycling of spent MOX fuel  and spent reprocessed uranium fuel. A figure showing the radioactive  materials generated by reprocessing and recycling of 1000 metric tons of  spent nuclear fuel in France is provided in appendix IV.
The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) is  planning to develop a geologic repository for the 470,000 cubic meters of  high- and intermediate-level wastes resulting from the operation of its  current nuclear reactors. However, the effect of reprocessing and  recycling spent nuclear fuel on the amount of space needed for a  geologic repository is under review, including whether to dispose of  radioactive materials that are being stored but that are potentially  reusable, primarily plutonium. In addition, NDA has estimated that it  would need to increase the geologic repository currently being planned by  about 50 percent to accommodate the spent nuclear fuel generated from  nine planned nuclear reactors, if this spent fuel is not reprocessed and  recycled into MOX fuel. In contrast, if the spent nuclear fuel from the  planned reactors is reprocessed and MOX fuel is fabricated and used in  these reactors, NDA anticipates that the geologic repository would only  need to increase by 15 percent. However, this latter estimate does not  consider the need to dispose of the spent MOX fuel from these proposed  new reactors.
Collocating reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities would better  minimize proliferation and terrorism risks. French government and  AREVA officials point to decades of safe and secure operations, but they  said that they recognize that, if they were to develop the recycling  infrastructure today, they would, among other things, collocate the  reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities to avoid transporting plutonium  for a distance of about 600 miles, as they do now. They also noted that  they would rely on reprocessing technology designed to keep plutonium  in a mixture with uranium that could be used for nuclear fuel, rather than  their current process of separating the plutonium from the uranium and  other radioactive materials.
According to United Kingdom officials, their current security arrangements  provide sufficient protection against the diversion of materials and against  terrorism. These arrangements include collocating reprocessing and  recycling facilities, as well as subjecting these facilities to stringent  security requirements using a multibarrier approach, such as robust  storage facilities and armed guards. They also told us that they favored  additional efforts to reduce the attractiveness of radioactive materials,  particularly plutonium, resulting from reprocessing and recycling. See  appendixes III and V for detailed information on these countries’  experiences with reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel.
section_title: Conclusions
paragraphs: To its credit, DOE has taken a systematic approach to planning for the  complex, scientifically challenging process of identifying and selecting  sustainable nuclear fuel cycle options and associated technologies by  2020 and demonstrating them by 2050. We are concerned, however, that  DOE’s initial steps will not be followed by actions needed to sustain its  plans over this long period to achieve this goal. In particular, DOE’s R&D  plan states that the department will continue to evaluate the technological  readiness of nuclear fuel cycle options to differentiate among them and to  focus development on those that will help meet the R&D plan’s schedules  and goals. However, neither the R&D plan nor the pilot screening process  describe the current readiness of all critical technologies associated with  the nuclear fuel cycles or the estimated time and costs for further  developing them, or relate technology readiness to R&D schedules and  goals. Such estimates are critical to understanding the magnitude of the  R&D effort and to measuring progress in developing these technologies.  In addition, DOE does not have a long-term strategy for collaborating with  the nuclear industry that clarifies the government’s and industry’s roles  and responsibilities. Without such a strategy, DOE cannot be assured that  the nuclear industry will accept and use the technologies that it develops.
Furthermore, DOE has not specified in its R&D plan how it will use its  collaborative agreements with other countries to advance its R&D efforts  to develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles over the longer term. As a  result, DOE may miss opportunities to use facilities and expertise in other  countries to more efficiently and effectively meet its R&D goals. Finally,  DOE has not developed a formal mechanism for coordinating its efforts to  develop sustainable nuclear fuel cycles with NNSA, which has lead  responsibility in DOE for minimizing proliferation and terrorism risks—a  critical factor in selecting new fuel cycles. DOE officials said they  recognize the need for coordination with NNSA and have done so  informally. They also said they have begun to discuss developing a  memorandum of understanding with NNSA. As we have reported,  defining organizational roles and responsibilities in formal mechanisms  can help agencies strengthen their commitments to work collaboratively  by clarifying who will lead or participate in which activities and how  decisions will be made. Formal mechanisms are also important to  sustaining coordination over the long term and avoiding overlap and  duplication.
section_title: Recommendations for Executive Action
paragraphs: For the Office of Nuclear Energy to reach its goal of selecting sustainable  nuclear fuel cycles and associated technologies by 2020 and  demonstrating them by 2050, we recommend that the Secretary of  Energy direct the Assistant Secretary of the Office Nuclear Energy to take  the following actions:  (1) Revise the R&D plan to  include the current readiness levels of the technologies associated  with the fuel cycle options being considered and the estimated time  and cost for developing these technologies in relationship to the R&D  plan’s schedules and goals,  include a strategy for sustaining long-term collaboration with the  nuclear industry, including a formal mechanism that clarifies the role  industry will have at critical points in selecting fuel cycle options and  associated technologies, and  specify how DOE will use collaborative agreements with other  countries to advance its R&D efforts and use available facilities and  expertise in these other countries to more efficiently and effectively  meet its R&D goals.  (2) Complete a memorandum of understanding with NNSA to help ensure  that DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA coordinate their work to  avoid overlap and duplication in their efforts to minimize proliferation and  terrorism risks.
section_title: Agency Comments and Our Response
paragraphs: We provided a draft of this report to the Department of Energy for review  and comment. In written comments on a draft of this report, the department  generally agreed with the first three of our recommendations and did not  rule out the future use of a formal memorandum of understanding between  its Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA, as we also recommended.
Specifically, with respect to our recommendation to include the current  readiness levels of the technologies associated with the fuel cycle options  being considered, DOE stated that it would incorporate lessons learned  from its assessment of technology maturity as part of an initial screening  of fuel cycle options in fiscal year 2010 to a follow-on screening study  planned for fiscal year 2013. DOE stated that it would then incorporate  technology readiness information developed and evaluated from the fiscal  year 2013 screening into revisions to its R&D plan. Furthermore, DOE  also stated that it will pay greater attention to defining technology  readiness and the costs and time needed to improve that readiness for  specific candidate technologies. Regarding our recommendation to  include a strategy for sustaining long-term collaboration with the nuclear  industry, DOE indicated that it would clarify its intentions for the nuclear  industry’s engagement over the long term as part of its revisions to its  R&D plan. With respect to our recommendation to specify how it will use  collaborative agreements with other countries to advance its R&D efforts,  DOE acknowledged that its R&D plan does not provide details regarding  approaches for how international collaboration will advance its R&D  efforts but stated that these details are available in other documents. We  recognize that the information on international collaboration may be  available in other documents, but we continue to believe that DOE needs  to incorporate this information as part of its revisions to its R&D plan to  provide a comprehensive roadmap to ensure that it will take advantage of  opportunities to use facilities and expertise in other countries to more  efficiently and effectively meet its R&D goals.
DOE did not rule out the future use of a formal memorandum of  understanding between its Office of Nuclear Energy and NNSA to help  ensure that they coordinate to avoid overlap and duplication in their  efforts to minimize proliferation and terrorism risks. DOE provided  examples of how the two offices are collaborating on nonproliferation  issues and stated that while it did consider using a memorandum of  understanding to formalize coordination, existing efforts already promote  significant teamwork. Our report noted these ongoing collaborations, but  we continue to believe that a memorandum of understanding would help  ensure that the efforts between the two organizations do not lead to  overlap and duplication. Our report noted that defining organizational  roles and responsibilities in formal mechanisms can help agencies  strengthen their commitment to work collaboratively by clarifying who will  lead or participate in which activities and how decisions will be made.
DOE also provided technical comments, which we incorporated as  appropriate. DOE’s letter and our response are in appendix VI.
As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of  this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days from the  report date. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretary of Energy,  appropriate congressional committees, and other interested parties. In  addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at  http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact  me at (202) 512-3841 or aloisee@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices  of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last  page of this report. GAO staff who made key contributions to this report  are listed in appendix VII.
section_title: Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology
paragraphs: We reviewed the (1) approach the Department of Energy (DOE) is taking  to select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles and associated  technologies; (2) efforts DOE is making to understand and minimize  nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks associated with nuclear fuel  cycles and associated technologies; and (3) experiences of France and  the United Kingdom in reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel that  may be useful to the United States in selecting sustainable nuclear fuel  cycles and associated technologies.
To address the first objective, to review the approach DOE is taking to  select and demonstrate sustainable nuclear fuel cycles and associated  technologies, we analyzed pertinent DOE documents, including DOE’s  “roadmap” for developing advanced recycling technologies and draft and  final versions of the plans implementing the roadmap. We refer to the  roadmap and the implementation plans collectively as DOE’s research  and development (R&D) plan. We also interviewed DOE program  managers from the nuclear fuel cycle R&D programs associated with the  development and implementation of the nuclear fuel cycle objective in the  roadmap. We also visited DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL), which  is the lead laboratory for DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, to conduct  semi-structured interviews with managing officials to assess the status of  fuel cycle R&D. We also obtained and reviewed documents prepared by  INL on nuclear fuel cycle research.
In addition, to obtain the nuclear industry’s views on collaboration with  DOE and the usefulness of DOE’s R&D plan for them, we interviewed  representatives from the six industry groups and analyzed documents we  obtained from four of these groups. The six industry groups (with their  partners) are the following:    AREVA group, which includes AREVA Federal Services, LLC; Battelle  Memorial Institute, Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Group,  Inc.; Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited; URS Corporation; and Duke Energy  Corporation.    CH2M Hill, Inc.    ENERCON group, which includes Enercon Services, Inc.; Entergy  Corporation; S.M. Stoller Corporation; and ANATECH Corporation.    EnergySolutions group, which includes EnergySolutions, LLC; Atomic  Energy of Canada Limited; Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.; Nuclear Fuel  Services, Inc. (a subsidiary of Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services  Group, Inc.); United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory; Exelon  Nuclear Partners (a Division of Exelon Corporation); International  Nuclear Services Limited; Sargent and Lundy, LLC; Talisman  International, LLC; Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc.; Columbia Basin  Consulting Group, LLC; North Wind, Inc.; and TerranearPMC, LLC.    General Electric Hitachi group, which includes GE Hitachi Nuclear  Energy Americas, LLC; Ernst and Young Global Limited; Fluor  Corporation; Lockheed Martin Corporation; and E.I. du Pont de  Nemours and Company.    Shaw group, which includes Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure,  Inc.; Westinghouse Solutions, Inc.; and Exelon Corporation,  Longenecker and Associates, Inc.
We also conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives from  these groups as well as with representatives from two major U.S.  utilities—the Tennessee Valley Authority and Duke Energy—of the 26  operating in the United States to obtain their views on their collaboration  with DOE and the usefulness of DOE’s plan to them. We selected these  two utilities because they were two companies with which DOE has  discussed buying mixed oxide (MOX) fuel from DOE’s Mixed Oxide Fuel  Fabrication Facility, which is currently under construction at DOE’s  Savannah River site in South Carolina. We also conducted semi- structured interviews with organizations that represent the nuclear  industry—the Nuclear Energy Institute, a policy organization for the  nuclear energy and technology industry, and the Electric Power Research  Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that provides R&D  relating to the generation, delivery, and use of electricity.
We also conducted semi-structured interviews with five subject matter  experts who could provide a range of views on reprocessing and  recycling spent nuclear fuel and on DOE’s R&D plan. Because we used a  nonprobability sample of experts to speak with and we did not attempt to  reach consensus among these experts, the information we obtained from  these experts cannot be generalized to all experts, but the interviews  provided us with information on the perspectives of various experts. To  select these experts, we reviewed presentations given before the Blue  Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, and from these  presentations identified experts who had presented relevant information;  we also reviewed the literature to identify subject matter experts who had  conducted extensive research on relevant issues and interviewed some  of these individuals; and we interviewed experts who were recommended  by other experts and government officials. The experts we interviewed for  this and the other objectives included academics, retired government  officials, ex-industry officials, and other individuals with extensive  knowledge of these issues. We also reviewed testimonies and  presentations delivered before the Blue Ribbon Commission and reports  issued by the commission.
To analyze DOE’s R&D work with international partners and obtain their  views on DOE’s international collaborations as DOE developed its  implementation plans, we spoke with government officials from France  and the United Kingdom on their R&D collaboration with DOE, and  participated in an international conference organized by the OECD–NEA  and sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the  European Commission. This conference, held in November 2010,  focused on, among other things, information exchanges on scientific and  strategic and policy developments in the field of reprocessing and  recycling.
To address the second objective, to review the efforts DOE is taking to  better understand and minimize nuclear proliferation and terrorism risks  with nuclear fuel cycles and their associated technologies, we obtained  and reviewed pertinent documents from the Office of Nuclear Energy, the  National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and INL. We also  interviewed cognizant Office of Nuclear Energy officials, as well as  officials from NNSA and the Department of State, which are lead  agencies for proliferation and terrorism risks. We also conducted semi- structured interviews with experts at INL and spoke with two experts from  Brookhaven and Los Alamos National Laboratories, who are involved in  understanding and minimizing proliferation and terrorism risks. Because  we used a nonprobability sample of 20 experts at national laboratories to  speak with, the information we obtained from these experts cannot be  generalized to all experts at the national laboratories, but the interviews  provided us with information on the perspectives of various experts from  the national laboratories. We also examined DOE’s participation in the  International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC).
Moreover, we participated in DOE’s Nuclear Energy Enabling Technology  program workshop, held in July 2010, to observe how the Office of  Nuclear Energy interacts with national laboratory officials, NNSA,  industry, and subject-matter experts on proliferation and terrorism issues.
We also obtained documents from, and conducted semi-structured  interviews with, representatives from the six nuclear industry groups to  obtain their views on their collaboration with DOE for understanding and  minimizing proliferation and terrorism risks. We also spoke with  government representatives from other countries to understand their  concerns about proliferation and terrorism risks. In addition, we  interviewed officials from the French atomic energy commission, the  Commissariat ál’Énergie Atomique (CEA), who participate in IFNEC to  learn more about their perception of IFNEC’s role in the international  nonproliferation arena.
In addition, we conducted individual semi-structured interviews with 10  subject matter experts in the proliferation and terrorism field. We  interviewed these experts to assess information received from DOE and  the national laboratories. However, we did not attempt to reach  consensus among these experts. Moreover, while in the United Kingdom,  we conducted a semi-structured interview with four experts from the  United Kingdom’s Royal Society who are working on a report to assess  proliferation and terrorism challenges for the future of nuclear power and  management of spent nuclear fuel. Furthermore, during the international  OECD-NEA conference, we obtained other countries’ views on  proliferation matters.
To address the third objective, to review the experiences of France and  the United Kingdom in reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel that  may be useful to the United States in selecting nuclear fuel cycles and  associated technologies, we reviewed relevant documents about their  nuclear energy systems, and visited these countries to observe their  experiences; obtain additional documents; and interview government,  nuclear industry, and utility representatives who oversee and manage the  reprocessing and recycling infrastructures. We also interviewed six  subject matter experts in the United States who are familiar with the  reprocessing and recycling process in these countries. We prepared  appendixes III and IV (for France), and V (for the United Kingdom)  reflecting these countries’ experiences, which we sent to their  government officials to review for technical accuracy. We made changes,  as appropriate, to incorporate their comments, but we did not  independently verify statements of law provided by these reviewers. We  selected France and the United Kingdom because they are among the  few countries that have decades of experience in reprocessing and  recycling spent nuclear fuel.
In France, we spoke with officials from government agencies, such as the  Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the General Directorate for Energy and  Climate Change, which is part of both the Ministry of Industry and New  Technologies and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development,  Transport and Housing. We also conducted semi-structured interviews  with officials from the French nuclear operator, AREVA, and from the  French utility, Electricité de France (EdF) to learn about their operating  experiences and outcomes of reprocessing and recycling.
We also visited the reprocessing facilities at AREVA’s La Hague site and  the MOX fuel fabrication facility at AREVA’s Marcoule site and conducted  semi-structured interviews with these facilities’ managers. To observe  how France conducts its R&D on advanced technologies, we visited  CEA’s R&D facilities at Marcoule and AREVA’s pilot testing facility at La  Hague, where we spoke with researchers and engineers. We also  interviewed two subject-matter experts on the French reprocessing and  recycling experience.
We also reviewed data from and conducted interviews with AREVA and  EdF officials to obtain information on the reprocessing and recycling  processes in France and the radioactive material that is generated by  these processes. We also consulted with experts from the Oak Ridge  National Laboratory on our analysis of the information obtained from the  French officials. In addition, we asked four subject-matter experts to  provide us with an additional perspective on waste generated by  reprocessing and recycling in France. We prepared a separate appendix  illustrating the facilities and processes involved in reprocessing and  recycling and the radioactive material generated by these processes,  which we sent to industry officials to review for technical accuracy (see  app. IV). We made changes, as appropriate, to incorporate their  comments.
In the United Kingdom, we spoke with officials from the Nuclear  Decommissioning Authority and the Department of Energy and Climate  Change. To observe reprocessing and recycling operations, we visited  the United Kingdom facilities at Sellafield—the Thermal Oxide  Reprocessing Plant and the Sellafield MOX fuel fabrication facilities—and  spoke with facility managers. To observe how the United Kingdom  conducts its R&D work on advanced technologies, we visited its National  Nuclear Laboratory, and we spoke with laboratory officials and  researchers. We also interviewed seven experts—three subject-matter  experts and four members from the United Kingdom’s Royal Society— who are knowledgeable about the United Kingdom’s reprocessing and  recycling experiences.
In addition, we interviewed officials from international organizations such  as OECD-NEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World  Nuclear Association to obtain an international perspective on  reprocessing and recycling.
We conducted this performance audit from May 2010 through October  2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing  standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to  obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for  our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe  that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings  and conclusions based on our audit objectives.
section_title: Appendix II: Significant R&D Challenges in Selecting and Demonstrating Nuclear Fuel Cycles
paragraphs: In its R&D plan, DOE has divided its R&D for selecting and demonstrating  nuclear fuel cycles into eight technical areas and identified associated  challenges. The following discusses some of the significant challenges  the plan identified in each area.
Systems analysis. This area refers to the development of computer  modeling and simulation to improve understanding of the  interdependences between fuel cycle subsystems and associated  technologies. According to DOE’s R&D plan, there are two potential  challenges: (1) rapidly create and deploy verified and validated modeling  and simulation capabilities essential for the design, implementation, and  operation of future nuclear energy systems with the goal of improving  U.S. energy security and (2) use systems analysis to integrate R&D  results from across the eight technical areas.
Fuel resources. DOE will conduct research in this area to better  understand the availability of uranium and other nuclear fuel materials to  help inform decisions on choosing nuclear fuel cycles. According to  DOE’s R&D plan, the potential challenge to this work is the ability to  extract uranium from unconventional sources, such as seawater,  including gathering reliable data on the feasibility and cost of this  extraction.
Fuel development. This area focuses on research to examine a variety of  nuclear fuels to support the three nuclear fuel cycle categories. DOE  identified potential challenges associated with this research, including (1)  significantly increasing the performance of nuclear fuels by extending the  time for fissioning and (2) fabricating fuel with minimal waste generation.
Separations. This technical area focuses on developing new separations  (i.e., reprocessing) methods that enable the recycling and/or  transmutation of key nuclear fuel constituents (e.g., actinides). These  methods must be economical (i.e., involve minimal processing); minimize  waste streams and volumes; and enable the effective safeguarding of  fissile material. DOE identified several challenges associated with this  technical area, such as capturing off-gases resulting from reprocessing  and developing separation processes that are more proliferation resistant  for minor actinides.
Waste forms. This technical area focuses on developing new  technologies for mixing high-level radioactive waste with different  materials, such as ceramics, glass, glass-ceramics, and metals, to derive  a waste form that can maintain stability and durability under long-term  exposure to high levels of radiation, among other things, and to  understand their performance in complex geologic settings. Among the  challenges DOE identified are significantly reducing the volume of high-  and low-level wastes and improving the durability of waste forms  containing the most radiotoxic (and nonradioactive toxic) components to  allow for a wide range of disposal options.
Storage and disposal. In this area, DOE plans to conduct research to  identify storage and disposal alternatives and develop technology to  enable the storage, transportation, and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and  wastes generated by existing and future nuclear fuel cycles. Challenges  DOE identified in its R&D plan include providing a sound technical basis  for absolute confidence in the safety and security of long-term storage,  transportation, and permanent disposal of used nuclear fuel and wastes  from the nuclear energy enterprise and integrating waste management  with no or minimal radioactive releases from storage and disposal  systems.
Transmutation technologies. This technical area focuses on developing  systems including nuclear reactors that would transmute radioactive  materials recovered from spent fuel to significantly reduce their  radioactivity. According to DOE’s R&D plan, the challenges presented in  this area include developing transmutation options that meet a broad  range of fuel cycle strategies and developing transmutation options that  efficiently generate electricity at a cost similar to that of light-water  reactors.
Materials, protection, control, and accountability technology. This research  area focuses on developing new processes and technologies to account for  and protect nuclear materials from proliferation and terrorism risks.  According to DOE’s R&D plan, challenges include developing online, real- time, continuous accountability instruments and techniques that  significantly improve the ability to inventory fissile materials in domestic fuel  cycle systems in order to detect diversion and prevent misuse.
section_title: Appendix III: The French Experience in Reprocessing and Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel
paragraphs: According to French government and nuclear energy officials and subject  matter experts, France has decades of experience with reprocessing and  recycling spent nuclear fuel. This appendix discusses (1) France’s  nuclear energy industry and the relevant oversight entities and (2)  France’s experiences with reprocessing and recycling facilities.
subsections: section_title: Oversight of Nuclear Energy
paragraphs: The primary government body involved in France’s nuclear power  infrastructure and policy is its General Directorate for Energy and Climate  Change, which is part of both the Ministry of Industry and New  Technologies and the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development,  Transport and Housing. France’s Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy  Commission, known as the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux  Energies Alternatives (CEA), is responsible for, among other things, all  areas of nuclear technology research. In addition, the French company,  AREVA, is responsible for managing all stages of the nuclear fuel cycle,  including constructing and operating reprocessing and recycling facilities.  The French nuclear utility, known as Electricité de France (EdF), is  responsible for operating the country’s commercial nuclear power  reactors. AREVA and EdF were previously wholly owned by the French  government but now operate as private companies. However, the French  government holds a more than 80 percent ownership share of each  company. The French national radioactive waste management agency,  known as the Agence Nationale pour la Gestion des Déchets Radioactifs  (ANDRA), is constituted as a public, industrial, and commercial  establishment responsible for conducting all operations relating to the  long-term management of radioactive waste. Nuclear safety issues are  regulated by the Nuclear Safety Authority.
section_title: Reprocessing and Recycling Facilities and Operating Experiences
paragraphs: According to documents we reviewed, French government and nuclear  industry officials, and subject matter experts, France’s nuclear power  infrastructure produces about 75 percent of its electricity needs. This  infrastructure includes facilities to reprocess and recycle spent nuclear  fuel. The discussion below describes these facilities—including (1)  reprocessing facilities, (2) a uranium reenrichment facility, (3) fuel  fabrication facilities, and (4) reactors that use recycled nuclear fuel—and  their operating experiences.
Under CEA, France has developed reprocessing facilities in two  locations. In 1953, CEA built its first reprocessing plant at one of its  research sites—Marcoule—in southeastern France. This facility, the  Usine de Plutonium (UP) 1, used for military purposes, was shut down in  1997. In 1967, CEA built its first reprocessing facility for commercial spent  nuclear fuel—UP2-400, which was capable of processing up to 400  metric tons annually of spent nuclear fuel—at La Hague, a site along the  Normandy coast. This reprocessing facility was shut down in 2004 after it  had reprocessed about 28,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. The  UP2-400 had contracts with neighboring European countries and Japan  for reprocessing services for the spent fuel produced from their  commercial nuclear reactors. In addition, in 1981, to meet the growing  demand for reprocessing from nuclear utilities in other countries, primarily  Germany and Japan, AREVA was authorized to construct other  reprocessing plants at La Hague. It began operations in 1990, at the  UP3, which can reprocess up to 900 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel  annually, and in 1994, at the UP2-800, which can reprocess up to 800  metric tons annually. Nuclear utilities in other countries substantially paid  for the construction of the UP3 facility, and EdF paid for the construction  of UP2-800 facility.
In the past few years, the UP3 and UP2-800 facilities have been  reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from EdF and from utilities in other  countries at an average of about 1,050 metric tons annually, or about 65  percent of the combined capability of these facilities, according to AREVA  officials. Until 2009, EdF shipped about 850 metric tons of its spent  nuclear fuel to La Hague each year for reprocessing—more than half of  the about 1,250 metric tons that EdF reactors produce annually. AREVA  officials told us that it is their policy to limit the amount of spent nuclear  fuel that they reprocess annually to the amount of plutonium needed to  fabricate enough MOX fuel to meet the needs of their utility customers,  including EdF and nuclear utilities in other countries. These officials  explained that this reprocessing strategy prevents creation of surplus  plutonium. Importantly, this strategy does not allow France to reduce its  inventory of plutonium, which is about 35 metric tons of domestic,  nondefense plutonium. In 2010, EdF increased shipments of spent  nuclear fuel to AREVA for reprocessing from 850 metric tons to 1,050  metric tons because it needed more MOX fuel for an expanded number of  reactors that are capable of using this fuel. AREVA officials told us they  expect to reprocess 1,500 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel per year by  2015, given anticipated demands from EdF and nuclear utilities in other  countries.
France reenriches some of the uranium that is obtained through  reprocessing (reprocessed uranium) to fabricate reprocessed uranium  fuel. This fuel is used by EdF and by nuclear utilities in other countries  that send their spent nuclear fuel to France for reprocessing. Before  2004, most of the reenrichment was carried out by the Urenco Company  in the Netherlands. Between 2004 and 2010, the reenrichment was  conducted at the JSC Siberian Chemical Combine in Seversk, Russia:  EdF sent about 500 metric tons of reprocessed uranium to this facility.  French government officials explained that it was necessary to send its  reprocessed uranium to these facilities in other countries because the  reenrichment process requires a technology that does not currently exist  in France. However, these officials explained that AREVA is currently  constructing a reenrichment line at its newly started George Besse II  enrichment facility, located at its Tricastin site in southeastern France,  which will use a technology that will allow AREVA to reenrich reprocessed  uranium. AREVA plans to begin operating this line in 2012.
France has operated two MOX fuel fabrication facilities and one  reprocessed uranium fuel fabrication facility. In 1989, CEA started  fabricating MOX fuel for light-water reactors at its facility in Cadarache,  located in southeastern France, for EdF and then for nuclear utilities in  Germany and Switzerland. According to French government officials, this  facility was shut down in 2003 because the cost of upgrading the facility  to meet new safety standards, especially seismic safety standards, could  not be justified. In 1995, AREVA constructed a new MOX fuel fabrication  facility, Melox, at the Marcoule site. Initially, in 1997, the Melox facility  was licensed for a capacity to fabricate 100 metric tons of MOX per year;  in 2003, the capacity was increased to 145 metric tons per year; and in  2007, it was increased to 195 metric tons per year, although it is not yet  operating at this level. According to AREVA officials, the capacity was first  increased to 145 metric tons because of the increased demand for MOX  fuel from nuclear utilities in other countries, primarily Germany and Japan,  and increased again to 195 metric tons to meet the anticipated demand  for MOX fuel, primarily from EdF.
To fabricate reprocessed uranium fuel, AREVA operates the Franco- Belgian Fuel Fabrication facility in southeastern France. The production  line devoted to fabricating this fuel began operations in 1993; it has the  capacity to fabricate about 150 metric tons annually and has been  producing about 80 metric tons annually.
According to French government officials we spoke with, the government,  through CEA, AREVA, and EdF, initially intended to use the uranium and  plutonium resulting from reprocessing as fuel for a fast reactor program.  Development of fast reactors began in the early 1960s, and two such  reactors were built and operated. The 233 megawatt (MW) Phénix fast  reactor operated between 1974 and 2009 and the 1,200 MW Super- Phénix operated between 1986 and 1998. These reactors were used to  test nuclear fuels, including fuel fabricated from the uranium and  plutonium that resulted from reprocessing. However, according to subject  matter experts in France, by the late 1980s, financial, technical, and  administrative barriers halted the deployment of fast reactors. Without the  fast reactor option, EdF decided to modify some of its 900 MW nuclear  reactors to accept MOX fuel, and the first reactor licensed to use this fuel  began operating in 1987. Currently, 21 of EdF’s 58 nuclear reactors have  been licensed to use MOX fuel, another reactor has been licensed to use  MOX fuel but has not yet used it, and EdF is seeking approval to use  MOX fuel in two more reactors. With respect to reprocessed uranium  fuel, 4 of EdF’s 58 reactors—each generating 900 MW—are licensed to  use this fuel. EdF began testing the use of this fuel in 1987 and started  using it full time in 1994. According to an EdF official, EdF has enough  reenriched reprocessed uranium to fabricate fuel for use in the four  reactors that use it for the next 20 years. However, the official explained  that EdF will continue to have AREVA reenrich reprocessed uranium  because EdF views this material as a strategic resource that EdF could  use in additional reactors if the price of conventional enriched uranium  fuel increases enough to make it economically feasible to do so.
In January 2006, the President of France announced a policy to develop  a prototype commercial fast reactor by 2020, a policy that was  subsequently enacted into law. As part of this new effort, CEA will begin  designing a fast reactor for demonstration by 2020 and commercial  deployment by 2035. According to CEA officials, the reactor is intended  to make better use of uranium resources, including the inventory of  depleted and reprocessed uranium; test the capability of the reactor to  consume radioactive material, including plutonium; and demonstrate the  usefulness of this reactor for commercial deployment. According to these  officials, the uranium and plutonium resulting from the reprocessing of  spent MOX fuel is expected to be used as the primary fuel for this reactor,  and additional reprocessing and fuel fabrication facilities would likely be  needed to support this program.
section_title: Appendix IV: The French Reprocessing and Recycling Process and the Resulting Radioactive Material
paragraphs: Figure 2 illustrates the process used in France to reprocess and recycle  1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and the radioactive material that is  generated from this process. The figure is in two parts: page 52 shows  the steps involved in reprocessing and recycling spent fuel, and page 53  shows the radioactive materials resulting from these steps and France’s  consideration of these materials as reusable or as waste.
As shown on page 52, facility 6, the reprocessing facility, produces,  among other radioactive materials, reprocessed uranium and plutonium,  and these two materials follow separate recycling pathways for use as  fuel in nuclear reactors; the arrows pointing to page 53 show the resulting  radioactive material generated by these pathways. As the figure shows,  the reprocessed uranium is sent through facility 7 for re-enrichment;  through facility 8, where it is fabricated into reprocessed uranium fuel; and  to facility 10, where it is used as fuel in a reactor licensed to use the fuel.  The plutonium is sent through facility 9, where it is fabricated into MOX  fuel; and to facility 11, where it is used as fuel in a reactor licensed to use  the fuel. As shown on page 53, reprocessing and recycling generate a  variety of radioactive material that may or may not be reused.
Figure 2 side A: Reprocessing and Recycling Process in France and the Resulting Radioactive Materials (continued on next page) (continued on next page)
subsections: section_title: Technical notes for the reprocessing and recycling process in France
paragraphs: Off-gases: Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel generates gases that  include the radioactive elements carbon-14, iodine-129, krypton-85, and  tritium. Reprocessing 1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel generates  about 7.6 metric tons of volatile fission products that are released to the  atmosphere as gases. Approximately 99.7 percent of these fission  products are not radioactive. The other 0.3 percent of these fission  products contains approximately 210,000 terabecquerels of radioactivity,  primarily from the fission product krypton-85. (A terabecquerels is a trillion  becquerels—a bequerel is a unit of measure of radioactivity.)
Water effluents: Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel generates water  effluents that include the radioactive elements carbon-14, iodine-129, and  tritium. Reprocessing 1,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel generates  about 0.3 metric tons of volatile fission products that are released to the  sea. Approximately 77 percent of this material contains about 10,000  terabecquerels of radioactivity, primarily from iodine-129 and tritium.
MOX scrap: This material consists of ceramic powder that is a byproduct  of the fabrication process (e.g., grinding dust) and also of MOX fuel  pellets that did not meet the needed technical or quality specifications— materials that are collectively referred to as MOX scrap. Of the  approximately 12 metric tons of MOX scrap generated from reprocessing  1,000 metric tons of spent fuel, about 95 percent is of high enough quality  that it is recycled at the fuel fabrication facility, while the remaining 5  percent is sent back for reuse at the reprocessing facility.
section_title: Technical notes for the radioactive material generated from reprocessing and recycling in France
paragraphs: Vitrified high-level waste (HLW): Reprocessing 1,000 metric tons of  spent nuclear fuel generates 35 metric tons of HLW waste and 213 metric  tons of packaging material, such as the glass in which the radioactive  material is encased and the steel storage containers holding the vitrified  HLW.
Process waste (HLW and intermediate-level waste, long-lived,   (ILW-LL)): This waste includes the cladding material, end-fittings, and  other structural material used to contain the nuclear fuel pellets. This  material is compacted and packaged into steel containers similar to those  used to contain vitrified HLW. The weight of the material shown in the  figure is the combined weight of the radioactive waste generated from  reprocessing and recycling and the weight of the container. AREVA did  not provide separate information on the weight of the radioactive waste  and of the container.
Technological waste (HLW and ILW-LL): Technological waste consists  of waste generated by plant operations (e.g., filters, pumps) contaminated  with radioactive elements. This waste is compacted or cemented into  different storage containers. The weight of the material shown in the  figure is the combined weight of the radioactive waste generated from  reprocessing and recycling and the weight of the container. AREVA  provided the volume of this material but did not provide separate  information on the weight of the radioactive waste and of the container.
Technological waste (low-level waste): Technological waste typically  consists of contaminated items, such as protective clothing, maintenance  waste, and failed equipment. The weight of the material shown in the  figure is the combined weight of the radioactive waste generated from  reprocessing and recycling and the weight of the container. AREVA did  not provide separate information on the weight of the radioactive waste  and of the container.
Depleted reprocessed uranium: Depleted reprocessed uranium is  radioactive material generated by the reenrichment process. It contains  trace amounts of other radioactive elements, including plutonium, fission  products, and minor actinides from the reprocessed uranium that was  reenriched. AREVA did not provide information on the amount of this  trace material.
section_title: Appendix V: The United Kingdom Experience in Reprocessing and Recycling Spent Nuclear Fuel
paragraphs: According to United Kingdom government and nuclear energy officials  and subject matter experts, the United Kingdom has decades of  experience with reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel. This  appendix discusses (1) the United Kingdom’s nuclear energy industry and  the relevant oversight entities, and (2) the United Kingdom’s reprocessing  and recycling facilities and operating experiences.
subsections: section_title: Oversight of Nuclear Energy
paragraphs: According to United Kingdom documents, government officials, and  subject matter experts, the United Kingdom’s nuclear power infrastructure  produces about 18 percent of the nation’s electricity needs. This  infrastructure includes facilities to reprocess and recycle spent nuclear  fuel. The primary United Kingdom government agency involved in  overseeing the nuclear power infrastructure and policy is the Department  of Energy and Climate Change, which was created in 2008 to bring  together energy policy and climate change mitigation policy.
Through the Energy Act of 2004 the government created the Nuclear  Decommissioning Authority (NDA), a government-owned organization  with responsibilities for decommissioning and cleaning up the facilities  and waste from the United Kingdom’s nuclear power infrastructure. To  support its operations, NDA uses revenues generated from the United  Kingdom’s reprocessing and recycling facilities—in Sellafield, Cumbria, in  the northwestern part of England—and from its Magnox nuclear reactors.  NDA also funds research across the United Kingdom’s nuclear complex  in support of its mission. This includes funding of research at another  government-owned organization, the National Nuclear Laboratory, which  conducts research and development on new reactors, the operations of  nuclear reactors and reprocessing facilities, and decommissioning and  environmental cleanup. In 2009, the French utility company, EdF,  acquired British Energy and took over the operation of the United  Kingdom’s 14 advanced gas-cooled nuclear reactors (AGR) and a light- water reactor.
The future of nuclear power in the United Kingdom was outlined in a  government white paper issued in January 2008. The report concluded  that it is in the public interest to allow nuclear utility companies the option  to build new nuclear reactors. The report also concluded that these  companies should proceed with the expectation that spent fuel from any  new nuclear reactors will not be reprocessed. However, the government  recognizes that it is up to the utility companies to decide, in consultation  with the government, if it is commercially feasible to reprocess and  recycle spent fuel because the companies are responsible for their share  of the waste management costs.
section_title: Reprocessing and Recycling Facilities and Operating Experiences
paragraphs: According to documents we reviewed, government officials, and subject  matter experts, the United Kingdom has decades of experience with  reprocessing and recycling spent nuclear fuel. The discussion below  describes the configuration and operating experiences of (1) three  reprocessing facilities, (2) a uranium reenrichment facility, (3) four fuel  fabrication facilities, and (4) reactors that use recycled nuclear fuel.
The United Kingdom has had three reprocessing facilities at its Sellafield  site. It built its first industrial-scale reprocessing facility after World War II  to obtain plutonium for its weapons program, and this facility was  decommissioned in the 1970s. It built its second—the Magnox  reprocessing facility—in 1964 to reprocess spent nuclear fuel from its  Magnox nuclear reactors. Reprocessing this fuel was necessary because  its magnesium alloy cladding proved chemically unstable in storage. The  Magnox facility has a licensed capacity to process up to 1,500 metric tons  of spent Magnox fuel annually. Over its lifetime, the Magnox facility has  reprocessed more than 44,000 metric tons of spent Magnox fuel and  returned over 15,000 metric tons of uranium to the fuel cycle. The facility  is expected to operate until 2016 to complete reprocessing the spent fuel  generated by the four remaining Magnox reactors. NDA expects to shut  down these reactors in 2012.
The third reprocessing facility—the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant  (THORP)—was approved for construction in 1978 and began operations  in 1994. This facility was initially intended to (1) capitalize on the  projected worldwide expansion of nuclear power and the expected  demand for reprocessing spent fuel services from nuclear utilities in other  countries and (2) reprocess spent nuclear fuel from the country’s 14  AGRs to provide plutonium for the fleet of fast reactors that was expected  to be constructed in the United Kingdom. It initially had a licensed  capacity to process up to 1,200 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel annually.  According to NDA documents, the construction costs for THORP were  paid for by domestic utility companies, as well as nuclear utilities in other  countries that needed to reprocess their spent nuclear fuel but did not  have the facilities to do so. Also according to NDA documents, as of  2010, THORP had reprocessed about 6,000 metric tons of spent nuclear  fuel—about 60 percent, or about 3,700 tons, from nuclear utilities in other  countries, primarily Germany and Japan. THORP is expected to operate  until 2018, when it plans to complete its current reprocessing contracts for  the remaining approximately 500 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel that still  needs reprocessing for nuclear utilities in other countries and about 2,500  metric tons of spent fuel from the United Kingdom’s AGRs. The last AGR  is expected to shut down in 2023, but its utility owner, EdF, may decide to  seek a license extension to continue operating some AGRs beyond this  date. NDA officials explained that any AGR spent nuclear fuel that is not  reprocessed after THORP closes will be put into long-term storage  pending a decision on its disposal.
THORP has never achieved its licensed capacity because of changes in  market demand for reprocessing services and technical problems.  According to a subject matter expert in the United Kingdom, about the  time that THORP began operations, the original rationale for the facility— providing reprocessing services and using plutonium for fast reactor  programs—had diminished. For example, Germany had contracted to  reprocess a total of 1,500 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel but reduced  this amount by 550 metric tons within months of THORP’s opening.  Furthermore, according to subject matter experts, THORP’s technical  problems—including equipment failures and accidents involving acid  spills, pipe leaks, and blockages—reduced its capacity for reprocessing.  Most significantly, THORP was shut down for 3 years beginning in 2005  because of a pipe fracture in a critical portion of the facility. When THORP  restarted operations in 2008, it could no longer operate at capacity  because of the technical problems, and its capacity was downgraded to  600 metric tons per year. According to NDA officials, NDA has decided  not to invest in THORP to restore operating capacity to its licensed  capacity because of the high cost involved.
The United Kingdom reenriched the uranium generated from the  reprocessing of spent fuel from its Magnox reactors and used the  resulting fuel (reenriched reprocessed uranium fuel) in its AGR reactors  up until about 2004. Reenrichment was conducted by Urenco, at its  facilities in Capenhurst, in the northwestern part of England. According to  an NDA official, this facility reenriched about 16,000 to 20,000 metric tons  of reprocessed uranium. This official explained that this reenrichment  began in the 1980s and ended in 2004 because the low price of uranium  made reenriching reprocessed uranium uneconomic.
The United Kingdom operates or has operated four facilities for  fabricating fuel out of the uranium and plutonium produced by  reprocessing. The following describes their operations:    The Springfields Works facility, owned and operated by  Westinghouse, located in Preston, England, fabricated reprocessed  uranium fuel for AGR reactors until 2004. According to an NDA  official, this facility produced about 1,000 to 1,650 metric tons of  reprocessed uranium fuel.    Between 1963 and 1988, British Nuclear Fuels operated a MOX fuel  fabrication facility at Sellafield that produced about 20 metric tons of  MOX fuel from plutonium and depleted uranium. According to an NDA  official, this MOX fuel was used in the United Kingdom’s fast reactors.    Between 1993 and 1999, the MOX Demonstration Facility—a small- scale plant to prove the technology to produce MOX fuel—operated at  Sellafield. This facility had a licensed capacity to produce up to 8  metric tons of MOX fuel annually for nuclear utilities in Germany,  Japan, and Switzerland; however, it produced only 16 metric tons of  MOX fuel during its 6 years of operations. NDA officials attributed this  low output to significant operational delays. For example, operations  were shut down because quality assurance data that accompanied a  MOX fuel shipment to Japanese nuclear utilities were found to be  falsified, making the fuel unacceptable, and the shipment was  returned to the United Kingdom.
In 2001, the Sellafield MOX Facility began operations to fabricate  MOX fuel for nuclear utilities in other countries, primarily Japan. The  Sellafield MOX Facility is licensed to produce up to 120 metric tons of  MOX fuel annually; it first exported MOX fuel in 2005. However,  according to subject matter experts, this facility encountered technical  problems when it first began operations, including equipment  breakdowns that reduced its output. In 2005, the facility’s capacity  was downgraded to up to 40 metric tons per year. According to a  United Kingdom report, in 9 years of operation, this facility produced  15 metric tons of MOX fuel—a small fraction of its original target of  560 metric tons over an expected 10 years of operating life. Starting  in 2008, NDA subcontracted fabrication of some MOX fuel to  AREVA’s Melox facility to complete its current contracts with nuclear  utilities in Japan. In August 2011, NDA announced that it would close  the facility as a result of the potential delays in orders for MOX fuel  from utilities in Japan following the earthquake in Japan and  subsequent events.
The United Kingdom has made only limited use of reactors using nuclear  fuels that rely on the uranium and plutonium resulting from reprocessing,  as the following describes:    The United Kingdom had initially intended to recycle the plutonium  derived from reprocessing Magnox and AGR spent nuclear fuel in its  fast reactor program. The United Kingdom operated two fast reactors:  the 14 megawatt (MW) Dounreay fast reactor operated between 1959  and 1977, and the 250 MW prototype fast reactor operated from 1974  through 1994. These reactors were used to test various materials and  nuclear fuels, including fuels fabricated from uranium and plutonium  from reprocessing. However, the United Kingdom decided to abandon  its fast reactor program in 1994. There were a number of factors  behind this decision, according to an NDA official. These factors  included low uranium and natural gas prices for power generation and  reduced interest in nuclear energy following the 1986 Chernobyl  accident. In addition, fast reactor technology proved more difficult to  commercialize than at first anticipated.    The United Kingdom had used reenriched reprocessed uranium fuel  in its AGRs until 2004 when the low price of uranium made  reenriching reprocessed uranium fuel uneconomic.    According to NDA officials, aside from the use of MOX fuel in fast  reactors, the United Kingdom has never used MOX fuel in any of its  other reactors. According to these officials, the government has not  ruled out the use of MOX fuel in planned nuclear reactors. In 2008,  the United Kingdom decided to support the building of new nuclear  power reactors, and nuclear utility companies, including EdF, have  come forward with plans to build at least nine new reactors. According  to EdF officials we spoke to in France, these reactors will be designed  to use up to 50 percent MOX fuel. According to an NDA official,  nuclear utilities have an option to come forward with plans to  reprocess spent nuclear fuel from any new reactors and to use MOX  fuel, but no utility company has come forward with plans to do so.
section_title: Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Energy and GAO’s Response
subsections: section_title: GAO Comments
paragraphs: 1.  We modified the report.  2.  We deleted the footnote.  3.  We deleted the sentence.  4.  We did not modify the statement. As our report notes, the difference  between a once-through, or open fuel cycle and a closed fuel cycle is  whether the spent fuel is reused. The United States has not reused  spent fuel; hence we consider the U.S. fuel cycle as once-through, or  open. Because France reuses spent fuel, we consider its system a  closed fuel cycle.  5.  We used the language in DOE’s implementation plan for the roadmap  to describe the modified open fuel cycle. The implementation plan  was issued 9 months after the roadmap, and the implementation plan  was to elaborate on the information in the roadmap. We suggest that  DOE reconcile the differences in these two documents in explaining  the modified open fuel cycle.  6.  We revised this footnote. The revised footnote uses the definition of a  fast reactor from DOE’s Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership  Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, DOE/EIS-0396  (Washington, D.C.: Office of Nuclear Energy, October 2008).  7.  See comment 1.  8.  See comment 1.  9.  We added a footnote to clarify that we had consolidated objectives  one and two into a general objective of safeguarding nuclear material.  10. See comment 1.
section_title: Appendix VII: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments
subsections: section_title: GAO Contact
section_title: Staff Acknowledgments
paragraphs: In addition to the individual named above, Daniel Feehan, Assistant  Director; Cristian Ion; Anne Rhodes-Kline; Thomas Laetz; Armetha Liles;  Timothy Persons; Katherine Raheb; Carol Herrnstadt Shulman; Kiki  Theodoropoulos; and Rajneesh Verma made key contributions to this  report.