Andrea Shipley: Areva will process uranium for the world and Idaho will get the waste | Reader's Opinion | Idaho Statesman
The Department of Energy intends to give a $2 billion federal loan guarantee to Areva, a giant nuclear corporation owned by the French government. The move essentially tags U.S. taxpayers as co-signers for the loans Areva would need to build a uranium-enrichment plant in eastern Idaho. The federal handout comes on top of substantial sales and property tax breaks the state of Idaho had already granted and was followed by a $750,000 highway construction grant that didn't even go through normal Transportation Department review.
The nuclear fuel made here would be used all over the world (though not in Idaho). Areva's profits would presumably be sent home to France, since the company is in dire financial straits. So what would we get for all this? The answer, such as it is, appears in the draft environmental impact statement on Areva's uranium-enrichment plant plans the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) just released. It's not a pretty picture.
The plant would produce more than 350,000 tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) over its licensed lifetime, and the door is already ajar for the license to be extended. That waste would be stored in 33,638 cylinders on outdoor concrete pads above the Snake River Aquifer as long as the plant operates. DUF6 is both radioactive and chemically toxic and has to be treated before it can be disposed of.
Two government-owned treatment plants are under construction, over budget, and behind schedule; waste the United States has already accumulated will take a combined 43 years to process. A private U.S. corporation is seeking a license for its own treatment plant. The draft EIS cavalierly dismisses any potential bottlenecks by stating that the waste could simply be sent to the treatment plants before they're ready to process it and then their operating lives extended. The draft EIS essentially ignores the fact that the U.S. does not have guidelines on how the treated waste will be disposed of.
And what else do we get? We get further degradation of the habitat for sage grouse, a candidate species for federal Endangered Species Act protection. Per year, we get about 2,000 trucks carrying radioactive materials in and out of the state. If the DUF6 ever leaves, add another 1,200.
Why would we pay all this? The stated rationale is that the United States "should maintain a viable and competitive domestic uranium-enrichment industry." The key word here is "domestic." Areva is owned by the French government. The bulk of the raw material for its Idaho plant will come from foreign sources. Furthermore, some significant portion of the product will be shipped overseas. The most "domestic" part of the proposal is that the waste will in fact stay here.
Furthermore, the "national energy security policy objective" Areva's plant is supposed to meet was enunciated in a letter from the DOE to the NRC eight years ago. There are no more nuclear reactors operating in the world than there were in 2002, but as of June, Urenco, a German company, is producing enriched uranium in New Mexico.
The DOE and state of Idaho have greased the skids for this plant with your taxpayer dollars. The NRC has clearly decided to license the facility before it hears from the public and has given the go-ahead for Areva to start preparing for construction this fall. It's a bad deal. A uranium factory without any strong national purpose will produce fuel for everywhere in the world but here, send its profits to France, and leave Idaho with the waste.
But it's not a done deal. The NRC will hear from the public Monday, Aug. 9, at the Oxford Suites Boise Hotel and on Thursday, Aug. 12, at the Idaho Falls Red Lion. Arrival at both meetings starts at 6:30 p.m.
Andrea Shipley is the executive director of Snake River Alliance in Boise.
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