This document summarizes DOE’s commercial nuclear energy RD&D program based on a R&D roadmap and on DOE/NE’s budget request for fiscal year 2011. The roadmap is written at a high level and is mostly qualitative in terms of activities, milestones and decisions to be made and does not contain budget information. The fiscal year 2011 budget request contains more specific and detailed information on activities, milestones, decisions, and budgets but only for fiscal year 2011 and the two preceding fiscal years.

Dear Co-Chairs Hamilton and Scowcroft:
The Obama Administration believes that nuclear energy has an important role to playas America moves to a clean energy future. One of my goals as Secretary of Energy is to help restart America's nuclear industry, creating thousands of new jobs and new export opportunities for the United States while producing the carbon free energy we need to power America's economy.

This report evaluates the radiological impacts during postulated accidents associated with the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, using the
RADTRAN 5.5 computer code developed by Sandia National Laboratories. RADTRAN 5.5 can
be applied to estimate the risks associated both with incident-free transportation of radioactive
materials as well as with accidents that may be assumed to occur during transportation. Incidentfree
transportation risks for transport of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain were evaluated in

The Disposal Subcommittee of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future has
commenced to address a set of issues, all of which bear directly on the central question: “How can the
United States go about establishing one or more disposal sites for high-level nuclear wastes in a manner
and within a timeframe that is technically, socially, economically, and politically acceptable?”
To answer this question and to develop specific recommendations and options for consideration by the

The United States makes decisions regarding the domestic uses of nuclear energy and the nuclear fuel cycle primarily based economic considerations, domestic political constraints, and environmental impact concerns. Such factors influence U.S. foreign policy decisions as well, but foreign policy decisions are often more strongly determined by national security considerations, including concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

Dear Representatives Upton and Shimkus,
At the direction of the President, the Secretary of Energy established the Blue Ribbon
Commission on America’s Nuclear Future and charged it with reviewing policies for
managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. We are serving as the Co-Chairmen of
the Commission and have taken note of your recent comments about the Commission’s
work.
Your comments echo those we have heard from several members of Congress and from
people across the country who believe the United States should not abandon the

Dear Co‐Chairs and Members of the Joint Select Committee: The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future was established by the Secretary of Energy at the direction of the President to review policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and recommend a new strategy. We are pleased to be serving as Co‐Chairmen of the Commission, and we are writing to you to highlight an important action we believe should be reflected in your Committee’s baseline budget projections as you craft a bipartisan plan for reducing the national budget deficit.

Dear Tim:
As we work to complete our final recommendations to the Secretary by January 29, 2012,
we have determined that our efforts would be aided by the formation of an ad hoc
subcommittee to investigate the issue of co‐mingling of defense and commercial wastes.
Specifically, the ad hoc subcommittee would review and make a recommendation to the
Commission on the issue of whether the 1985 Presidential decision to co‐mingle defense
and commercial wastes for disposal should be revisited in light of changes that have

To advance nuclear energy to meet future energy needs, ten countries—Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of South Africa, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States—have agreed on a framework for international cooperation in research for a future generation of nuclear energy systems, known as Generation IV. The figure below gives an overview of the generations of nuclear energy systems. The first generation was advanced in the 1950s and 60s in the early prototype reactors.

This report puts forth a number of options and recommendations for how to engage
stakeholders and other members of the public in the storage and management of spent
nuclear fuel and high level waste in the United States. The options are generated from a
scientific review of existing publications proposing criteria for assessing past efforts to
engage publics and stakeholders in decision-making about risky technologies. A set of
nine principles are derived for evaluating cases of public and stakeholder engagement with