Report to Congress on Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative: The Future Path for Advanced Spent Fuel Treatment and Transmutation Research

The Administration has concluded, as reflected in the National Energy Policy, that nuclear energy can play a strong role in the future of the Nation's energy security needs. Nuclear power is the only technology available that can produce economic, baseload quantities of energy without emitting harmful pollutants including those associated with global climate change. Nuclear power plants produce about a fifth of all U.S. electric power and do so in an economic, safe, and reliable fashion. Although nuclear energy does not emit harmful pollutants, it generates spent nuclear fuel. Disposal of this material, which is highly toxic for hundreds of thousands of years, presents a wide range of social, political, regulatory, and technical issues. Over the last three years, DOE, its laboratories, and university and private company partners have worked with the international research community to explore the potential of advanced nuclear technologies that can reduce the difficulty of disposing of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants. This research, conducted under DOE's Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA) Program (the program that the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, or AFCI, will replace), is designed to reduce the volume and toxicity of the nuclear waste. This report is based on the knowledge gained during that research and the results of deliberations with many experts around the world.