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The cancellation of US funding for some programmes of GNEP does not signal the demise of GNEP, or the US's support for its work. Schulte mentioned that there are two international working groups in GNEP. The first addresses infrastructure development and seeks to help states begin implementing the guidance conveyed in the IAEA Milestones document. The second working group addresses reliable nuclear fuel services as a viable alternative to the acquisition of sensitive fuel cycle technologies. The US government's own Ed McGinnis is the chair of the GNEP parnters and observers steering group.

The purpose of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is to encourage the growth of nuclear power worldwide. "It was a Bush initiative that Canada joined in December 2007 without any debate in parliament," explains Schacherl. An article printed in The Toronto Star on November 29, 2007 called on Canada to join a controversial nuclear partnership. The plan proposes re-using nuclear waste, a practice effectively banned in Canada and the U.S. since the 1970s for security reasons. It was announced in this article that Canada would be a part of the GNEP. Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada insisted that "no matter which side of the nuclear debate you fall on - pro or anti - everyone should be able to agree this is something which deserves public scrutiny." Schacherl adds, "One of the principles of the GNEP partnership is that those countries who sell uranium will agree to take back the spent fuel. The United States, who initiated the partnership, benefits the most as it has a huge nuclear waste problem. Yucca Mountain, where long-term storage was once planned, has now been shelved for a number of reasons including community opposition. Countries such as Canada clearly don't benefit as they will take

The purpose of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership is to encourage the growth of nuclear power worldwide. "It was a Bush initiative that Canada joined in December 2007 without any debate in parliament," explains Schacherl. An article printed in The Toronto Star on November 29, 2007 called on Canada to join a controversial nuclear partnership. The plan proposes re-using nuclear waste, a practice effectively banned in Canada and the U.S. since the 1970s for security reasons. It was announced in this article that Canada would be a part of the GNEP. Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada insisted that "no matter which side of the nuclear debate you fall on - pro or anti - everyone should be able to agree this is something which deserves public scrutiny." Schacherl adds, "One of the principles of the GNEP partnership is that those countries who sell uranium will agree to take back the spent fuel. The United States, who initiated the partnership, benefits the most as it has a huge nuclear waste problem. Yucca Mountain, where long-term storage was once planned, has now been shelved for a number of reasons including community opposition. Countries such as Canada clearly don't benefit as they will take

Dan Stout, the Dept. of Energy's director of nuclear fuel recycling, said the comment period on the draft programmatic environmental impact statement for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership would be extended beyond the current deadline of Dec. 16. At this time, however, a new date has not been set, Stout said at last night's GNEP hearing in Oak Ridge.l Stout also indicated DOE was considering a request for additional GNEP hearings at other sites. You can submit a comment by clicking here and doing a search for GNEP. Or you can submit comments in writing to: Mr. Frank Schwartz U.S. Dept. of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy -- NE-5 1000 Independence Ave., SW Washington, D.C. 20585. The draft PEIS is available here.

Notice of Availability of Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement AGENCY: Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of Availability and Public Hearings. SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE) announces the availability of the Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Draft GNEP PEIS, DOE/EIS-0396). The Draft GNEP PEIS provides an analysis of the potential environmental consequences of the reasonable alternatives to support expansion of domestic and international nuclear energy production while reducing the risks associated with nuclear proliferation and reducing the impacts associated with spent nuclear fuel disposal (e.g., by reducing the volume, thermal output, and/or radiotoxicity of waste requiring geologic disposal). Based on the GNEP PEIS and other information, DOE could decide to support the demonstration and deployment of changes to the existing commercial nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. Alternatives analyzed include the existing open fuel cycle and various alternative closed and open fuel cycles. In an open (or once-through) fuel cycle, nuclear fuel is used in a power plant one time and the resulting spent nuclear fuel is stored for eventual disposal in a geologic repository. In a closed fuel cycle, spent nuclear fuel would be recycled to recover energy-bearing components for use in new nuclear fuel.

Remember Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Bush nuclear wonder-program supposed to bring us "6,000 local jobs?" A jobs bonanza was promised at Piketon, so worthwhile as to warrant the postponement of public oversight and major site cleanup. Now the GNEP dinosaur is dead. In October, the National Academy of Sciences slammed the program as a hugely expensive exercise in sci-fi fantasy. In June, the House Appropriations Subcommittee provided "no funding for the Administration's counterproductive, poorly designed, and poorly executed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)" in its markup of the 2009 budget. In July, the Department of Energy canceled the siting process for GNEP "facilities," and tossed away the "candidate list" on which Piketon was included.

The third Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Executive Committee meeting was held here on Friday, on which its member countries stressed to support a peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy. Zhang Guobao, director of the National Administration of Energy, presided over the meeting. In an opening address, Zhang said nuclear energy that is clear, safe and greenhouse gas emission-free, would play a crucial role in the world energy system. At the meeting, the Executive Committee reconfirmed that safety, security and non-proliferation were fundamental prerequisites for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. All partnership activities should be conducted in a manner to enhance them. According to the GNEP Joint Statement issued at the meeting, the partners will further strengthen cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other relevant international organizations.

The third Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Executive Committee meeting was held here on Friday, on which its member countries stressed to support a peaceful and safe use of nuclear energy. Zhang Guobao, director of the National Administration of Energy, presided over the meeting. In an opening address, Zhang said nuclear energy that is clear, safe and greenhouse gas emission-free, would play a crucial role in the world energy system. At the meeting, the Executive Committee reconfirmed that safety, security and non-proliferation were fundamental prerequisites for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. All partnership activities should be conducted in a manner to enhance them. According to the GNEP Joint Statement issued at the meeting, the partners will further strengthen cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency and other relevant international organizations.

URGENT ACTION ALERT! Condemned by health and environmental groups across the country, GNEP means foreign nuclear waste imported and "reprocessed" in the USA. This is a national issue! We need a big national outcry!!! Washington, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, South Carolina, and all our sister states! Cold War nuclear sites are thirty years behind on clean-up! NO foreign waste! Global Nuclear Energy Partnership In the dying throes of the Bush administration, one last environmental disaster is being foisted on the public. With GNEP, the Pacific Northwest, Hanford Nuclear Reservation and Idaho Falls, the Southwest and sites in the Eastern USA could all get a lot more nuclear waste (both from within and outside the country) and dirty nuclear waste 'reprocessing' plants, "recycling" reactors, and "advanced fuel cycle research facilities"-all verbal green-washings of very dirty processes. The Department of Energy (DOE) is holding public hearings on GNEP in November through early December, 2008, final hearing on December 9 in Washington DC in a rush to push this awful idea in under the wire. Thursday, November 20, 7:00 p.m. Hilton Garden Inn 700 Lindsay Boulevard Idaho Falls, IDAHO 83402 Tuesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m. Best Western Hood River Inn - Gorge Room 1108 East Marina Way Hood River, OREGON 97031 Monday, November 17, 7:00 p.m. Red Lion Hotel 2525 North 20th Avenue Pasco, WASHINGTON 99301 Monday, November 17, 7:00 p.m. Lea County Event Center 5101 North Lovington-Hobbs Hwy Hobbs, NEW MEXICO 88240 Tuesday, November 18, 9:00 a.m. Pecos River Village Conference Center Carousel House 711 Muscatel Avenue Carlsbad, NEW MEXICO 88220 Tuesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m. Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell Occupational Technology Center Seminar Room 124 20 West Mathis Roswell, NEW MEXICO 88130 Thursday, November 20, 7:00 p.m. Hilltop House Best Western 400 Trinity Drive (at Central) Los Alamos, NEW MEXICO 87544 Mon

With its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) already facing resistance from Congress, the Bush administration has decided to leave to the next president key decisions affecting the domestic leg of the controversial program. Administration officials have claimed that GNEP, which seeks to develop new nuclear technologies and new international nuclear fuel arrangements, will cut nuclear waste and decrease the risk that an anticipated growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide could spur nuclear proliferation.

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.

"The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) underwent an overhaul at a meeting last week in Accra, Ghana. Transformative changes reflect global developments that have occurred since the partnership was established in 2007, and include a new name-the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation-and a new mission statement. The partnership started out as a U.S.-led initiative under President George W. Bush in 2006, seeking to improve the proliferation-resistance of the nuclear fuel cycle while guaranteeing access to fuel supplies through both political and technological initiatives. But last year, after 14 hearings and 15,000 comments, the U.S. Department of Energy reportedly pulled the plug on domestic involvement in the partnership. A DOE spokesperson was quoted as saying that the nation's "long-term fuel cycle research and development program will continue but not the near-term deployment of recycling facilities or fast reactors." The spokesman noted that the international component of GNEP was under interagency review. "

On August 25, 2008, the Nuclear Energy Institute released a fact sheet for press at the Democratic National Convention claiming that "Nuclear power plants and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are not linked." This statement assumes that sensitive nuclear technologies will not spread. However, the Bush administration's current proposal to resume reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel under the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership has increased the risk that nuclear energy will result in more nuclear weapons-usable material in the United States and abroad. The Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) proposes that the United States would separate plutonium from spent nuclear fuel through reprocessing. GNEP envisions that "receiver" countries would voluntarily give up nuclear enrichment and reprocessing technologies and, in exchange, and would send their nuclear waste to "supplier" countries for reprocessing. In practice, GNEP is a proliferation risk, exorbitantly expensive, and not a solution to the growing nuclear waste problem in the United States

A US Department of Energy spokeswoman has confirmed that the US domestic component of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership has been cancelled. "The Department has already decided not to continue the domestic GNEP program of the last administration," said DOE deputy press secretary Jen Stutsman in a statement on April 15. "The long-term fuel cycle research and development program will continue but not the near-term deployment of recycling facilities or fast reactors. The international component of GNEP is under interagency review."

Critics had some harsh words for the U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday regarding a draft environmental impact statement prepared for a proposed program meant to safely, securely and sustainably expand the use of nuclear energy. DOE has prepared the statement for what is known as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, and officials had a public hearing on the program at the New Hope Center at the Y-12 National Security Complex. First proposed by the Bush Administration, GNEP would expand the use of nuclear power as an energy source, both domestically and internationally. Officials say it would also strive to reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation and limit the impacts of getting rid of spent nuclear fuel.

The U.S. Department of Energy didn't get a lot of community support Tuesday at a public hearing to discuss its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Program. The program, referred to as GNEP, would, at its most basic level, allow for research and development of the recycling of spent nuclear fuel rods. At its most active level, the program could include advanced nuclear recycling using advanced recycling reactors. The meeting was conducted in Piketon, where a GNEP program could be implemented in the future. The DOE already owns land and has facilities that would be good for recycling, and is one of many DOE sites being considered.

Speakers were split on whether the nation needs to get a faster jump on reusing spent commercial nuclear fuel or drop plans to reprocess it during comments at a public hearing Monday evening in Pasco. About 120 people came to the hearing on a new draft environmental study for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, that considered whether fuel should be used more than the one time now allowed in the United States. The draft study favored reprocessing fuel to use multiple times, but did not pick a preferred way of doing that. It also did not look at specific sites for reprocessing fuel, as expected when 300 people attended a meeting on GNEP in Pasco last spring and Tri-City residents promoted a new production mission for Hanford.

The Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program, already under siege, has been further imperiled after recent action by several congressional panels and an April report from the congressional watchdog agency. Administration officials have claimed that GNEP, which seeks to develop new nuclear technologies and new international nuclear fuel arrangements, will cut nuclear waste and decrease the risk that an anticipated growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide could spur nuclear proliferation.

Abstract posted below. Download the full article online (PDF, 16 pages). Abstract: Since the dawn of the atomic age, the United States has sought to encourage the use of nuclear energy while minimizing the proliferation risks associated with it. The latest U.S. initiative that sets out to accomplish this is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), which, in its current form, potentially includes the spread of sensitive nuclear technologies around the globe. This article examines the concerns surrounding the proliferation of these technologies and surveys their history both domestically and internationally. In identifying these concerns, the author argues that GNEP needs to be considered in the context of the Atoms for Peace program; that it erodes the successful thirty-year U.S. position against reprocessing; and that it allows for the spread of technologies that are not proliferation-resistant.

The U.S. Energy Department made official today its plan to scrap a Bush administration initiative that could have brought a major nuclear fuel reprocessing facility to South Carolina. Economic developers, however, say the cancellation of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership-published in today's Federal Register- doesn't mean Barnwell County and Savannah River Site won't win a similar venture in the future. "At this point, GNEP, as a concept, is dead, but the issue of what do do with this material isn't," said Danny Black, president of the Barnwell-based SouthernCarolina Alliance, a regional economic development consortium. The GNEP program, unveiled in 2006, was a broad plan to reprocess spent commercial nuclear fuel to maximize its efficiency, reduce waste volume and prevent its exploitation for nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a notification in the Federal Register today that it is extending the comment period on the Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) by 90 days. The public comment period will now end on March 16, 2009.

Representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) participated this week in the third Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Infrastructure Development Working Group (IDWG), underscoring the Department's commitment to ensuring that global expansion of civilian nuclear power is done safely and securely, while reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation and responsibly managing waste. The IDWG, held December 8th and 9th in Vienna, Austria, includes over 70 participants from 22 countries working to support the sharing of educational resources, the promotion of technical educational opportunities and the establishment of new programs by which nuclear energy issues can be properly supported by trained, educated, and qualified personnel.