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UNCLAS STATE 109919 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ENRG KNNP TRGY AU
 
SUBJECT: Second Meeting of the GNEP Reliable Nuclear Fuel Services 
Working Group 
 
¶1. Summary. The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) Working 
Group on Reliable Nuclear Fuel Services held its second meeting 
September 3 - 4 2008 in Vienna Austria.  The Group decided to 
establish two sub-groups, one on fact-finding and a second on the 
back end of the fuel cycle.  The Fact Finding subgroup, co-led by 
France and Poland, will study lessons learned by members who have 
dealt with fuel cycle issues as well as long term resource and supply 
issues.  The back end group, led by France will explore the ways to 
deal with spent-fuel take-back and the elements and criteria for 
closing the fuel cycle.  Terms of reference for the back-end 
sub-group will be presented at the next Working Group meeting, 
tentatively scheduled for March 2009.  The fact-finding subgroup will 
report on its work to the next meeting. Two other sub-groups were 
identified: (1) mechanisms needed to increase the diversity of 
fabricated fuel supply and (2) what kind of assurances a country 
should consider as sufficient for nuclear fuel supply.  The U.S. 
co-chairs will be calling for expression of interest for leadership 
of these two sub-groups. In developing the themes for the sub-groups, 
views and perspectives were considered from Partner countries 
involved in various aspects of nuclear power as well as those 
countries considering the use of nuclear power for the first time. 
End Summary. 
 
¶2.  Participants.  The meeting opened on the morning of September 3 
under the co-chairmanship of William Szymanski and Sean Oehlbert of 
the US Department of Energy.  In addition to the United States, 
representatives of Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, France, Japan, 
Jordan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, 
Russia, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom participated.  The IAEA 
attended as an observer. 
 
¶3.  Discussion of the Survey. The focal point of this meeting was an 
exchange of views on a survey, conducted between the first and second 
meetings, on the meaning of reliable fuel services and the legal, 
regulatory and policy framework for member's fuel cycle activities. 
Eleven members responded to the survey.  There was broad agreement 
that the market for front end fuel services was working well, but 
considerable difference in view on other aspects.  It was noted that 
one respondent believed that recent HEU down-blending activities had 
depressed the price of uranium and made it more difficult to develop 
new sources of uranium. 
 
¶4. France observed that there was an active market addressing the 
back end of the fuel cycle through reprocessing and that several 
states offered these services.  Several other members commented that 
reprocessing raised complex and difficult economic issues.  Others 
noted that for some states reprocessing decisions were politically 
sensitive, so reprocessing decisions could not always be based solely 
on economic criteria.  The IAEA representative noted that the back 
end of the fuel cycle remained an issue because only one-third of 
spent nuclear fuel is currently being reprocessed and no state has 
yet opened a permanent SNF repository. 
 
¶5. On the issue of spent fuel take-back, Canada noted the importance 
of defining the country of origin for nuclear fuel.  The country 
supplying the uranium, the country supplying enrichment services or 
the fuel fabricator might each be considered the country of origin. 
 
¶6.  On another market-related issue, France argued that competition 
for fuel fabrication services was inherently limited because fuel 
design varied with reactor.  Supplies of reactor fuel were often 
based on a long term relationship between reactor-importing states 
and the reactor supplier.  France, Poland and the United Kingdom 
agreed that the projected expansion of nuclear energy could place 
strains on the uranium market.  As countries considering nuclear 
energy, Poland and Jordan both expressed concern that the long-term 
availability of uranium fuel might make going nuclear a bad choice. 
Jordan expressed concern that the market will eventually drive the 
price for uranium services higher or that countries will provide such 
services to their national reactors rather than small states.  The 
United States replied that this uncertainty was not unique to nuclear 
energy, noting the recent volatility of petroleum prices and the 
uncertain impact of proposed carbon taxes.  Expanded use of any 
energy source will raise long term supply and price concerns.  France 
noted that there was no shortage of uranium at present and that any 
shortage, if it occurred, would take decades to develop.  Long term 
supply contract have helped make reactor fuel markets less volatile 
than fossil fuel markets.  The IAEA noted that its studies indicated 
that uranium supply will be adequate for several decades.  China 
concurred and noted that many uranium sources have not yet been 
exploited. 
 
¶7.  On the issue of supply delays due to transport delay, Australia 
noted that while the IAEA has well-established standards for 
transporting radioactive material, differing national interpretations 
of those standards had caused problems.  The IAEA agreed with this 
assessment. 
 
¶8.  IAEA Presentation.  On the morning of September 4, Mr. Hans 
Forsstrom of the Nuclear Fuel and Materials Section of the IAEA 
Department of Nuclear Energy made a presentation on IAEA work on the 
back end of the fuel cycle.  He noted that long term storage was a 
mature technology and that the IAEA SPAR program is trying to 
anticipate future storage problems.  Forsstrom noted that many 
countries appear to be waiting for back end fuel cycle questions to 
be resolved, thereby choosing to rely upon existing storage 
technologies.  An expansion of nuclear energy may require increased 
use of reprocessing and fast reactors, but noted that these 
developments raised nonproliferation concerns.  The 2005 IAEA study 
on multilateral approaches to the fuel cycle identified several 
objective advantages of such approaches.  The main problems facing 
the use of multilateral approaches are political. 
 
¶9. National Approaches to Back End of Fuel Cycle.  Closing the fuel 
cycle remained a long-term goal for the United States, which has 
focused on advanced fuel recycling research.  The advantages of spent 
fuel take-back were recognized, but currently this too remained a 
long-term goal for the United States.  France reprocesses its spent 
fuel, and regards reprocessing as a mature technology.  Reprocessing 
reduces the quantity and radioactivity of waste and is regarded as 
key to the sustainability of the nuclear energy industry.  The United 
Kingdom has also supported reprocessing but noted that its facilities 
were aging.  The UK is currently looking at all options for the 
future, and intends to continue reprocessing only if it is 
commercially viable.  The Netherlands has a contract in place for the 
reprocessing of its spent fuel.  Renewal of this contract will have 
to be approved by parliament, however, where reprocessing is a 
controversial issue.  China intends to adopt a closed fuel cycle and 
has a pilot reprocessing plant in place.  The other participants did 
not make statements on their approaches. 
 
¶10. Future Work.  Turning to future work and the creation of 
sub-groups, the Working Group decided to address the issues under 
five general themes - fuel assurances, the back end of the fuel 
cycle, collateral issues, fuel fabrication and fact finding.  Several 
participants objected that five sub-groups were too many to be 
usefully working at on one time.  At the suggestion of France, the 
group decided to follow the decision of the infrastructure working 
group, which designated individual countries as focal points to work 
on specific issues without the necessity of holding sub-group 
meetings.  It was decided to establish two sub-groups, one on 
fact-finding and a second on the back end of the fuel cycle.  The 
Fact finding subgroup, co-led by France and Poland, will study 
lessons learned by members who have dealt with fuel cycle issues as 
well as long term resource and supply issues.  The back end group, 
led by France will explore the ways to deal with spent-fuel take-back 
and the elements and criteria for closing the fuel cycle.  Terms of 
reference for the back-end sub-group will be presented at the next 
Working Group meeting, tentatively scheduled for March 2009.  The 
fact-finding subgroup will report on its work to the next meeting. 
Two other sub-groups were identified: (1) mechanisms needed to 
increase the diversity of fabricated fuel supply and (2) what kind of 
assurances a country should consider as sufficient for nuclear fuel 
supply.  The U.S. co-chairs will be calling for expression of 
interest for leadership of these two sub-groups. In developing the 
themes for the sub-groups, views and perspectives were considered 
from Partner countries involved in various aspects of nuclear power 
as well as those countries such as Jordan and Poland considering the 
use of nuclear power for the first time. 
 
¶11. Organizational.  The United State will continue to chair the 
Working Group until the end of 2008.  The chair will consult with 
other members in the next few weeks to determine a chair for 2009. 
The first meeting for 2009 was tentatively set for March.  France 
offered to host a Working Group meeting in 2009 that could include a 
visit to the La Hague reprocessing facility. 
RICE 
 
 
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