The US Department of Energy will issue a "no significant impact" finding on its plan to sell portions of its excess uranium inventory in the US uranium market, DOE's William Szymanski told officials Wednesday at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's annual fuel cycle conference. The finding stems from an environmental impact statement DOE began work on last year under the Bush administration, as the department surveyed how best to manage 59,000 metric tons of DOE-owned uranium that are now stored in cylinders. The finding soon will be published in the Federal Register, said Szymanski, the director of global nuclear fuel assurance in DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy. A statement that then-Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman issued last year states DOE believes it can sell up to 10% of the nation's annual nuclear fuel requirements on the US uranium market and "not have an adverse material impact on the domestic uranium industry." The department still "needs to cross all the 'Ts' and dot all the 'Is'" to ensure that the administration of President Barack Obama will approve such a plan, Szymanski said.
Mining giant BHP Billiton says plans to increase the amount of radioactive material it sends to Darwin by rail will not be a risk to public health.
The company wants to freight about 1.6 million tonnes of radioactive copper concentrate to Darwin each year if its proposed expansion of the Olympic Dam in South Australia gets the green light.
The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been given more time to provide U.S. Reps. Jim Matheson and Edward J. Markey the memos, reports and other decision documents on the disposal of depleted uranium.
Alyson Heyrend, spokeswoman for the Utah Democrat, said agency staff was scrambling to pull together thousands of pages covered under the information request made two weeks ago. The documents were due Thursday.
"We think they are trying in good faith to meet the request," she said.
Matheson and the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee chairman, a Massachusetts Democrat, wrote to the NRC March 19, demanding to know what's behind the NRC's decision to keep depleted uranium in the lowest-hazard category for radioactive waste. It's a regulatory status that one commission member calls a "loophole." The congressmen want to know who and what influenced the NRC's thinking.
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