The International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) formerly the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) began as a U.S. proposal, announced by

United States Secretary of Energy The United States secretary of energy is the head of the United States Department of Energy, a member of the Cabinet of the United States, and fifteenth in the presidential line of succession. The position was created on October 1, 1977, when Pr ...

Samuel Bodman on February 6, 2006, to form an international partnership to promote the use of

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced ...

and close the

nuclear fuel cycle The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the ''front end'', which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the ''service period'' in w ...

in a way that reduces

nuclear waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons ...

and the risk of nuclear proliferation. This proposal would divide the world into "fuel supplier nations," which supply

enriched uranium Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (238U ...

fuel and take back spent fuel, and "user nations," which operate nuclear power plants. As GNEP the proposal proved controversial in the United States and internationally. The

U.S. Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washin ...

provided far less funding for GNEP than President George W. Bush requested. U.S. arms control organizations criticized the proposal to resume reprocessing as costly and increasing proliferation risks. Some countries and analysts criticized the GNEP proposal for discriminating between countries as nuclear fuel cycle "haves" and "have-nots." In April 2009 the U.S. Department of Energy announced the cancellation of the U.S. domestic component of GNEP. In 2010, the GNEP was renamed the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation. IFNEC is now an international partnership with 34 participant and 31 observer countries, and three international organization observers.International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation
/ref> The international organization observers are: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Generation IV International Forum, and the

European Atomic Energy Community The European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) is an international organisation established by the Euratom Treaty on 25 March 1957 with the original purpose of creating a specialist market for nuclear power in Europe, by developing nucl ...

. Since 2015, the

Nuclear Energy Agency The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) is an intergovernmental agency that is organized under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Originally formed on 1 February 1958 with the name European Nuclear Energy Agency (ENEA)— ...

provides Technical Secretariat support. IFNEC operates by consensus among its partners based on an agreed GNEP Statement of Mission.

GNEP in the United States

The GNEP proposal began as part of the Advanced Energy Initiative announced by President Bush in his 2006

State of the Union address The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of each calendar year on the current conditi ...

. In announcing the GNEP Proposal, the U.S. Department of Energy said: As a research and development program, GNEP is an outgrowth of the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative In April 2009 the U.S. Department of Energy announced the cancellation of the U.S. domestic component of GNEP, and in June 2009 announced that it is no longer pursuing domestic commercial reprocessing and had largely halted the domestic GNEP programme. Research would continue on proliferation-resistant fuel cycles and waste management.

Partnerships

The United States has established a number of cooperative arrangements to pursue technical cooperation on this proposal. On February 16, 2006 the United States,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and Japan signed an "arrangement" to research and develop sodium-cooled fast reactors in support of the GNEP. The United States has established "action plans" for collaboration with Russia, Japan and China. On September 16, 2007, 16 countries officially became GNEP Partners by signing the GNEP Statement of Principles. These countries were: *Australia *Bulgaria *China *France *Ghana *Hungary *Japan *Jordan *Kazakhstan *Lithuania *Poland *Romania *Russia *Slovenia *Ukraine *United States Since then, nine additional countries have joined: *Armenia *Canada *Estonia *Italy *Republic of Korea *Morocco *Oman *Senegal *United Kingdom Seventeen countries have been invited to join GNEP as partners but have not been willing to sign the Statement of Principles and have participated as observers. These include South Africa, although South African Minerals and Energy Minister Buyelwa Sonjica stated that "Exporting uranium only to get it back refined, instead of enriching it in South Africa, would be 'in conflict with our national policy.'" 25 additional countries have been invited to join GNEP at the October 1, 2008 GNEP Ministerial in Paris, France.Global Nuclear Energy Partnership website
/ref>

Criticism

In 2007 a large number of U.S. nuclear arms control organizations sent a joint letter to

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

requesting that GNEP funding be terminated on the grounds that it undermined U.S. nuclear proliferation policy, would cost over $100 billion, and did not solve the

problem. In 2008

allocated less than half of the requested funds, supporting GNEP research but not technology demonstration projects. The

Congressional Budget Office The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the United States Congress, legislative branch of the United States government that provides budget and economic information to Congress. Ins ...

assessed that reprocessing spent nuclear fuel would cost considerably more than disposal in a long-term repository. Some states do not approve of the GNEP philosophy that partitions the world between a few fuel-cycle states and a larger number of receiver states, reflecting the distinctions in the

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...

. They are concerned that their nuclear fuel assurance could in the future be subject to external political pressure. They also believe it creates an unfortunate incentive on states to develop enrichment or reprocessing technology now, to position themselves to become one of the future fuel-cycle states. Steve Kidd, Head of Strategy & Research at the

World Nuclear Association World Nuclear Association is the international organization that promotes nuclear power and supports the companies that comprise the global nuclear industry. Its members come from all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining, ur ...

, has explained:

An alternative view of GNEP may see it as somewhat discriminatory and potentially anti-competitive. By restricting parts of the fuel cycle to particular countries, albeit with fair rights of access to nuclear materials, there is a risk of maintaining or even reinforcing the existing NPT arrangements that have always upset certain nations, notably India and Pakistan. Similarly, by maintaining a market stranglehold on, for example, enrichment facilities in the existing countries, it can be argued that the market will be uncompetitive and lead to excessive profits being achieved by those who are so favoured.

Another criticism is that GNEP seeks to deploy proliferation-prone reprocessing technology for commercial reasons, and to bypass the continued delays with the

Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, as designated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act amendments of 1987, is a proposed deep geological repository storage facility within Yucca Mountain for spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radio ...

, while erroneously claiming to enhance global nuclear security.

References

External links

Department of Energy's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership pageGNEP international partnership official web siteUS launches Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
Nuclear Engineering International, 8 February 2006
GNEP: the right way forward?
Nuclear Engineering International, 1 June 2006

Peter Baker and Dafna Linzer,

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

, January 26, 2006
Reprocessing Revisited:The International Dimensions of the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership

Edwin Lyman Edwin S. Lyman is a physicist and the Director of Nuclear Power Safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). He specializes in nuclear proliferation, nuclear terrorism, and nuclear power safety. Lyman has published extensively in jour ...

and Frank N. von Hippel, Arms Control Today, April 2008
Reports: The future of GNEP

"Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"
', July-Aug 2008 {{Nuke emerging Nuclear technology Arms control Energy policy Energy in the United States Nuclear reprocessing

GNEP in the United States

Partnerships

Criticism

See also

References

External links