The Bush Adminstration's dangerous Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program would expand global nuclear energy production by creating plutonium fuel to be used in a new generation of nuclear power plants through the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel – extracting the plutonium and uranium from used fuel – is the dirtiest operation of the nuclear fuel cycle and produces separated plutonium and other nuclear weapon-usable materials and vast amounts of extremely dangerous waste.

GNEP is incredibly expensive. Government estimates place the cost between $3 billion and $6 billion in its first five years. However, the Department of Energy (DOE) has provided no costs for operation and eventual decontamination. An estimate by the National Academies of Science states that reprocessing the spent fuel now targeted for Yucca Mountain would cost between $50 billion to $100 billion more than direct disposal (1996 dollars).

Despite the claims of proponents, reprocessing is not “recycling” and will not help the nation’s waste problem—it will only spread the radioactive waste over a greater volume of waste streams. The waste from reprocessing is hotter than the original spent fuel and will still require storage in a geologic repository.

For a short period in the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. government reprocessed spent nuclear fuel for use in commercial reactors until the practice was banned in 1976. Even though the ban on reprocessing was lifted in 1981, industry showed no interest due to its exorbitant costs and the availability of inexpensive uranium ore. Reprocessing for nuclear weapons other military programs took place in Washington State, South Carolina, and Idaho from the 1940s through the 1980s. These sites remain some of the most polluted places in the Western Hemisphere. The legacy of reprocessing is 100 million gallons of extremely dangerous high-level radioactive waste, stored in 243 leak-prone tanks and threatening crucial water resources.