SRS Watch, in response to a DOE notice that an Environmental Impact Statement would be prepared on production and availability of High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU), has requested that a Nonproliferation Impact Assessment (NPIA) be prepared related to the HALEU program.
See DOE’s “Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Availability Program Activities in Support of Commercial Production of HALEU Fuel,” in the Federal Register on June 5, 2023, posted here: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-06-05/pdf/2023-11877.pdf
SRS Watch has also requested, as part of the NPIA, that potential use of HALEU in a nuclear weapon device be assessed.
SRS Watch also asked that the draft EIS look at production of HALEU via reprocessing at the H-Canyon at SRS of spent research reactor fuel. DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) has announced it will not separate highly enriched uranium from the spent fuel and that the HEU won’t be blended down into HALEU. As the draft EIS will be a product of the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), this is their chance to agree or disagree with what EM is doing. EM claims that processing the spent fuel directly into the SRS high-level waste tanks without HEU separation and downblending will save $4 billion and enable the closure of the H-Canyon more than 20 years earlier. Evidently NE didn’t want to come up with the money to separate HEU at H-Canyon. Now, they are being asked to explain their position, about which they have been silent.
See the SRS Watch 4-page “scoping” comment of June 5, 2023 posted here: NOI scoping comment by SRS Watch June 5, 2023