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Even if there isn't much left of it The Department of Energy is soldiering on with the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership ( GNEP ) even though Congress has repeatedly shredded its budget. The nuclear industry has ignored it except when it handed out money.  Critics have attacked it as a giant...

Time/location - 7:00 PM Hilton Garden Inn, 700 Lindsay Blvd In March 2007 over 700 people from eastern Idaho stunned Department of Energy officials by turning out to support the location of GNEP advanced nuclear energy facilities in eastern Idaho. It was the biggest show of support in the nation for...

Prospects are uncertain in the Senate The House Appropriations Committee voted this week to zero out funding in FY2009 for the Department of Energy's ill-fated and much maligned Global Nuclear Energy Program ( GNEP ).  This is a repeat of last year's action by the House which kicked GNEP...

Two reactor R&D efforts are linked in a single grant funding opportunity The Department of Energy isn't giving up on GNEP even if Congress has repeatedly sent a strong message it isn't going to fund the program at the levels requested by the agency. In a new twist DOE has linked nuclear reactor...

Says the government will pay more for fewer acronyms The Department of Energy this week issued a request for information (RFI) targeting industry and university groups, and other interested parties, asking for input on a prototype, low-emission nuclear plant at its Idaho National Laboratory ( INL )....

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $18.3 million to four industry teams to further develop plans for an initial nuclear fuel recycling center and advanced recycling reactor as part of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The awards include $5.9 million to EnergySolutions; $5.7 million...

Decision follows the UK's commitment to a new nuclear building program Reuters reports that the U.K. has signed up to become the 21st member of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership ( GNEP ) and without very much political fanfare to accompany it. When Canada and Australia proposed to get involved...

Turkey pledges guarantees for nuclear power purchases Turkey stepped into the nuclear energy spotlight last week with an announcement that it will guarantee electricity purchases for 15 years to attract investment in nuclear power stations it plans to build, Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said at a nuclear...

DOE comments published in Morris, IL, raise questions Hat tip to Rod Adams at Atomic Insights Blog In the great comedy send up of horror flicks Young Frankenstein , there is a terrific scene in which the dwarf Igor, player to perfection by Marty Feldman, tells Dr. Frankenstein, played with equal brilliance...

If they're not in the PEIS, then they're off the table for site decisions next June The Department of Energy is unbundling its GNEP alternatives under the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement ( PEIS ). Previously, all three types of massive nuclear fuel facilities were included in the...

Democrats trade nuclear funding for domestic priorities Hat tip to Nukes of Hazard Congress released today its joint House-Senate omnibus appropriations bill, the FY 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act. GNEP took a significant hit. The bill funds the program at $179 million, $216 million below the President...

Computer simulation and full scale testing of components are part of the plan Defying conventional wisdom that the only destiny for spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear reactors is long-term storage, General Electric says there are big dollars at the tail end of the nuclear energy value chain....

International nuclear agreements end nation's silence on big potential deals with GNEP and Russia. GNEP nations need Canada's uranium.  Russia needs its reactor technologies. Last summer when more than a dozen nations held a ministerial level diplomatic meeting in Vienna, Austria, on the...

Ambitious program is said to be sidelining important reactor R&D The Associated Press reports that the National Academy of Sciences wants President Bush to abandon an ambitious plan to resume nuclear waste reprocessing. A panel of scientists said GNEP , has not been adequately peer reviewed and is...

Sustainable energy supply requires reliable fuel and nuclear safeguards Sometimes the wizards of the nuclear world are hidden from view, and when they have organized themselves on the remote, high desert of Idaho, it seems their work might be invisible. Some light was shed on the federal government's...

Energy strategy will reserve uranium for its own reactors Reuters reports that South Africa declined an invitation to join a U.S.-initiated multilateral nuclear supply pact because it could undermine Pretoria's plan to revive uranium enrichment on its own soil. South Africa's no-show at a 16-nation signing...

Nine tons will be gone by 2012 At the GNEP meeting taking place in Vienna, Austria, this week the U.S. pledged to remove nine metric tons of plutonium, enough to make over 1,000 weapons, from its weapons stockpile. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman made the pledge on Monday. That's 18,941 pounds or...

Australia joins up despite controversy at home, but Canada plays it cool The GNEP ministerial meeting kicked off in Vienna, Austria, today with 11 nations signing up for a project that will manage nuclear fuel on a global basis. The second GNEP Ministerial is being held in Vienna, Austria ahead of the...

Nuclear Energy, Climate Change, Dominate APEC Meeting By Dan Yurman, Contributing Reporter Fuel Cycle Week V6 N245 September 11, 2007 It was a busy week for Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard. He hosted the 21-nation Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney, signed a GNEP deal with...

The country's nuclear industry is eager to get into the business The Toronto Globe & Mail reports that Canada will eventually get into the business of reprocessing spent fuel. Gary Lunn , Canada's Natural Resources Minister, said September 5th, "reprocessing spent fuel from a CANDU reactor is not something...

Australia’s New Nuclear Ambitions Revealed GNEP May Swing the Outcome of Its Next Election By Dan Yurman, Contributing Reporter Fuel Cycle Week, V6 N243 August 28, 2007 On July 20th the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's biggest newspaper, blew the lid off a story the government would rather have kept...

The Department of Energy announced on July 30th that four consortia have been selected to receive up to $16M. They will develop conceptual design studies, cost estimates, and preliminary schedules for building a spent fuel recycling center and advanced reactor under the Global Nucelar Energy Program...