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In February of 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy stirred controversy by announcing it was considering recycling nuclear waste and building facilities at Argonne National Laboratory and on a site near Morris to aid in the effort. Now, the Department of Energy is stepping back, announcing it is not considering any sites for the facilities. The department still is examining the feasibility of reprocessing nuclear waste.

"Virginia's Homeland Security Capital Corp. has received two task orders for environmental cleanup and facility demolition support services. Homeland Security Capital announced its Safety and Ecology Corp. subsidiary was selected by the U.S. Energy Department to provide environmental remediation services at the New Brunswick Laboratory. The $1.2 million hazardous material cleanup task order includes dismantling, removal and decommissioning of contaminated nuclear material at the laboratory in Argonne, Ill."

* Global warming necessitates investment in low-emission, base-load electric generation alternatives, including new nuclear power plants. * International standards for safety and nonproliferation are necessary to ensure the successful development of new plants. * Nuclear weapon states need to strive to meet disarmament commitments to support nonproliferation efforts. Global warming necessitates the development of new forms of low-emissions, base-load power generating capacity. To assess the financial, regulatory, and proliferation concerns confronting nuclear energy and to develop strategies for addressing the barriers to the deployment of new reactors, in late September 2008, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists convened nearly 40 scientists, policy makers, industry representatives, and nongovernmental experts from around the world. The meeting was cosponsored by the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Chicago Council on Science and Technology. A subset of the meeting's participants developed the following findings and recommendations based upon the presentations and discussions at the meeting. These findings and recommendations do not represent the views of all of the meeting participants or sponsors. Conference participants who endorse this document are listed at the bottom.

The Obama administration may be melting down a program that would have shipped deadly radioactive wastes from around the world to a reprocessing facility eyed for Chicago's Southwest suburbs. "The program has been terminated," Department of Energy spokesman Brian Quirke told Chicago Page One Examiner last week about the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. That happened in late March, when GNEP was chopped from the new budget, he said. The controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership [GNEP] was a pet project of the DOE during the Bush years. It called for transporting radioactive waste from the nation's 104 nuclear reactors and from 25 foreign countries signed on as "GNEP Partners." The DOE for two years was mulling a contract with Argonne National Labs that had tentative plans to site a nuclear reprocessing plant near Morris. Highly radioactive weapons-useable plutonium from nuclear reactors across the nation and around the world would have been shipped by truck, rail, and barge for research, development, reprocessing, and long-term storage.