SRS Watch news, November 3, 2015 – linked here
German Nuclear Waste Commission Approves Resolution to Ban Export of Spent Fuel, Including AVR Spent Fuel from Juelich to the Savannah River Site
Documents Obtained from via FOIA Request Reveals No Proliferation Risk to German Spent Fuel and that Daunting Risks Face the Import Proposal
SRS Watch: Time to Formally Terminate This Embarrassing, Half-Baked Waste-Dumping Scheme
Columbia, South Carolina — A commission established in Germany to decide how spent nuclear reactor fuel is be managed has approved a resolution against the export of spent fuel, including spent fuel to the United States from the AVR and THTR experimental reactors. The Savannah River Site has been a target for receipt of this commercial spent fuel, with Savannah River National Lab investigating reprocessing and waste-handling options.
The passage of the resolution by the German High-Level Waste Commission on October 2 does not have the authority of law but sends the strongest of signals that the export of the spent fuel in question to SRS is in serious trouble. The resolution passed by the commission of the German Bundestag (parliament) and made up of elected Bundestag members specifically states that the option of export of the AVR spent fuel to the US no longer remains. Likewise, the resolution states that export of THTR spent graphite fuel, also considered for export to SRS, should not be not permitted. The resolution could be adopted by the full Bundestag and turned into law.
“The decision by the German waste commission against shipment of the German highly radioactive spent fuel to the US should give the public near SRS a sigh of relief as the proposal is now near termination,” said Tom Clements, director of Savannah River Site Watch. “As SRS and German officials did not think clearly about the myriad of technical, legal and cost challenges, the embarrassing proposal to turn SRS into a dumping site for German highly radioactive nuclear waste was doomed to failure from the start and should be promptly abandoned.”