A proposal to bring this waste into southern Ohio is being studied by the Southern Ohio Nuclear Integration Cooperative (SONIC), a newly-created partnership formed by a Cleveland firm and the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative, a public and privately funded development group. Plans would include building a “storage and reprocessing” plant at the site of the US Dept. of Energy (DOE)’s now-closed uranium enrichment plant outside Piketon, Ohio.

A Piketon operation would be part of President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) plan, a larger US government plan to increase the use of nuclear power, while promoting its plans to the public as “reducing nuclear waste”, “safeguarding foreign nuclear waste” and “reducing nuclear proliferation”. The latter would be accomplished by offering other countries nuclear fuel and recycling services if they agree to not pursue those same technologies.

An advanced, plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor could also be built at the Piketon site. This “fast” reactor would produce electricity by burning uranium and plutonium from the reprocessed fuel rods. Plutonium is a long-lasting and highly radioactive element produced when highly-enriched uranium is burned in the fuel rods at nuclear power plants.

Fast reactors are now being advocated as a waste solution that would reduce the radioactivity of spent fuel. These claims are completely false, according to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Reprocessing does not change the amount of radioactivity—it dilutes it. Dilution allows reclassification from high-level to so-called “low-level” waste. Reprocessing does not reduce waste volume; to the contrary, fuel pellet volume is magnified by a factor of 100–100,000. In reprocessing, fuel rod pellets are converted to a liquid sludge, creating a fundamental loss in the stability of the dry ceramic pellets in the metal clad fuel rod.

Fast reactors have a terrible track record in safety and economics. A similar reprocessing plant operated in West Valley, NY from 1966-72. It had numerous malfunctions and met only 1/6 of its reprocessing goals. Cost estimates for cleanup at the site are $5 billion. India stole West Valley technology and used it to develop nuclear weapons. The Ford Administration shut the plant down because of security and radioactive leaks. President Carter outlawed the technology as a nonproliferation issue, but Ronald Regan later lifted the ban.

The Superphénix fast reactor in France cost $9.1 billion. It began operation in 1986, but was closed in 1997 as a result of sodium leaks and cracks in the reactor vessel. It only operated for the equivalent of 278 days of full power. More information on the fast reactors and their problems.

SONIC is applying for a $5 million grant from DOE to study putting these operations at the Piketon site. DOE is offering a total of $20 million in grants to study possible facility sites. This is to be a speedy process, with grants being awarded in Oct. and studies to be completed in early 2007.

A number of nuclear activities have occurred at this once pastoral site. A gaseous-diffusion plant, which was reported to use more electricity than the city of Los Angeles, enriched uranium for weapons and later for power plants. It operated for about 50 years before closing in 2001. DOE is now conducting a major cleanup of radioactive contaminants and hazardous chemicals there. The US Enrichment Corporation is building a pilot uranium enrichment facility which uses a newer gas centrifuge technology. The financially-strapped company is awaiting federal approval for a commercial-sized version of the pilot plant. (The unsophisticated license application for this plant was challenged by the Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS). PRESS’ thorough analysis of multiple shortcomings in the application was not accepted as reason to let the organization intervene in the licensing process.)  DOE is also building a plant to reprocess 20,000 cylinders of uranium hexafluoride waste from the old enrichment process at Piketon and other sites.

Citizens have been organizing in the area since the 1950s, protesting high radioactive and other toxic contamination, worker cancer deaths, and secret activities at the site. With no permanent site for the nation’s radioactive waste, Ohio could become a de-facto waste dump since it is unlikely that another state would accept the reprocessed materials. Transporting the materials by truck and train into Ohio would also risk contamination from accidents.