Draft Global Nuclear Energy Partnership Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| gnep_peis.pdf (30.78 MB) | 30.78 MB |
This Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) provides an analysis of the potential
environmental impacts of the proposed Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program,
which is a United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) program intended to support a safe,
secure, and sustainable expansion of nuclear energy, both
domestically and internationally. Domestically, the
GNEP Program would promote technologies that support
economic, sustained production of nuclear-generated
electricity, while reducing the impacts associated with
spent nuclear fuel1 (SNF) disposal and reducing
proliferation risks. DOE envisions changing the U.S.
nuclear energy fuel cycle from an open (or oncethrough)
fuel cycle—in which nuclear fuel is used in a
power plant one time and the resulting SNF is stored for
eventual disposal in a geologic repository—to a closed
fuel cycle in which SNF would be recycled2 to recover
energy-bearing components for use in new nuclear fuel.
Recycling would be accomplished by separating SNF
into usable components and waste. The usable
components would be available for use as new nuclear
fuel to produce electricity and the waste components would be put into stable waste forms for
storage and disposal. Internationally, the GNEP Program framework would help to ensure that
nuclear power electricity generation can be expanded with reduced nuclear proliferation risk.3
