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RCED-84-111 1 (1984-01-27)

handle is hein.gao/gaobabnfz0001 and id is 1 raw text is: 


               UNITED STATES GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
     oi 6jIE                   WASHINGTON. D.C. 20648


 mEsoURCES. COMMUNITY.
AND ECONOMIC OlVULOIMENT
     DIVISION                                    January 27, 1984

       B-202377

                                             RELEASED
       The Honorable Richard L. Ottinger

       Chairman, Subcommittee on Energy
         Conservation and Power
       Committee on Energy and Commerce
       House of Representatives                                    123308

       Dear Mr. Chairman:

            Subject:   DOE Needs to Evaluate Pully the Waste Management
                      Effects of Extending the Useful Life of Nuclear
                      Fuel  (GAO/RCED-84-111)

            In your letter of September 22, 1983, you expressed concern
       that the Department of Energy (DOE) may be overlooking or, at
       least, not fully utilizing opportunities available under its
       Light Water Reactor Extended Burnup program to help fulfill the
       Department's responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
       of 1982.1    This letter summarizes our efforts to determine
       whether DOE needs to do more to evaluate the potential impact of
       extended fuel burnup on its planning efforts to carry out the
       act.

            The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a compre-
       hensive national program for the interim storage, and permanent
       disposal, of spent fuel2 discharged from commercial nuclear
       power reactors. Although comprehensive in stipulating how spent
       fuel will be managed, the act does not contain provisions design-
       ed to encourage reduction in the amount of spent fuel generated
       by reactors.   However, a relatively small DOE effort ($4.5 mil-
       lion in fiscal year 1984) has the objective of reducing substan-
       tially the generation rate of spent fuel.       This DOE effort--
       referred to as the extended burnup program--supports research and
       development projects to extend the ournup or useful life of


       IPublic Law 97-425, 96 Stat. 2201, 42 U.S.C. 10101 et. seq.
       2Spent fuel is fuel that has been burned in a nuclear reactor
       to the point where it no longer contributes efficiently to the
       nuclear chain reaction and must be replaced.

                                                                (301647)

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