Department of Energy (DOE) Public Scoping Meeting on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)
North Augusta Community Center, North Augusta, SC
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Attended by William Murphy, Andrew James, and Sarah Chisholm
The following article is a summary of the Public Scoping Meeting and some thoughts on the PEIS scope and selected comments made at the meeting.
GNEP is a national and international partnership that aims to reprocess (recycle) used nuclear fuel using new proliferation-resistant technologies and to establish an international fuel bank to allow for the world-wide expansion of nuclear power in a safe and controlled manner. The DOE is holding a series of 11 meetings throughout communities being considered for the GNEP facilities to entertain public comment on the scope of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.
The Public Scoping Meeting began at 6:30PM with approximately 120 people in attendance and roughly 90 people signed up to give a comment. The meeting began with video introduction by the DOE Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, Dennis Spurgeon. The video introduction was immediately followed by a presentation by the Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Nuclear Energy, Richard Black. Nuclear energy is a way to address the growing need for a means to generate base-load electricity reliably and without air pollution or emissions of greenhouse gasses. The intention of GNEP is to “provide for the safe expansion of clean, affordable nuclear power to meet the growing worldwide demand for energy and encourage the growth of prosperity around the globeâ€.
The Public Comment portion of the meeting began with comments from elected Federal and State officials. Comments were submitted on the behalf of all of the US Senators from South Carolina and Georgia, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, as well as numerous State and Local Representatives. All of the elected officials at the meeting were in support of GNEP. Their comments focused on the economic benefit that the state of South Carolina would get from the GNEP program as well as the fact that nuclear energy does not emit greenhouse gasses. SC US Senator Jim DeMint stated that GNEP “breaks barriers associated with expansion of nuclear power.â€
In addition to many local citizens speaking in favor of GNEP, organizations speaking in favor of GNEP included Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness (CNTA) and Savannah River Site Retirees Association (SRSRA). William Murphy of the Carolina Chapter of NA-YGN gave the following comments during the meeting:
As a concerned citizen of, and an engineer-in-training licensed in, the state of South Carolina, I am largely pleased with the environmental issues to be analyzed in, and proposed scope of, the GNEP Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement.
Section VIII of DOE’s notice of intent for the EIS lists the potential environmental issues for analysis. I am thoroughly impressed with the wide range of issues that DOE has proposed. What is especially significant is the proposed inclusion of potential impacts from acts of terrorism and sabotage. This issue (as it pertains to the nuclear power industry) has very recently made its way through the United States justice system. To see this item addressed in the GNEP programmatic EIS will not only serve to abate the fears of environmental harm from an attack on GNEP’s facilities, but it will also help to reduce the chance of litigation that may impede facility operation.
Section IV of DOE’s notice of intent states that “DOE should pursue and analyze alternatives to nuclear power in a PEIS.” I disagree that this item falls within the scope of the GNEP programmatic EIS. As it is written, this item serves as a referendum upon the institution of commercial nuclear power generation as a whole. As the GNEP programmatic EIS is meant to discuss GNEP, I contend that this item’s scope should be narrowed to only alternatives to GNEP. However, if the item is to be analyzed in the EIS as is, then I propose a balancing addition to the EIS: that the consequences of not employing commercial nuclear power generation are analyzed as well. Section II of DOE’s notice of intent states that the world’s electricity consumption will double between 2003 and 2030. Without an increase in baseload nuclear generation, I believe the EIS would conclude that the only realistic alternatives would be coal or natural gas-based generation, both of which are substantial carbon emitters. If GNEP’s programmatic EIS is to discuss alternatives to nuclear power as a whole, it should also discuss the consequences of such alternatives.
