DOE resumes program to accept spent fuel from foreign reactors

AFTER A delay of more than seven years, the Department of Energy (DOE) in September resumed its program to manage and store spent nuclear fuel from foreign research reactors. The first shipments of spent fuel, which contained enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for two crude weapons, arrived September 22 at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station (NWS) in South Carolina from reactor facilities in Chile, Colombia, France, Sweden and Switzerland. The material was transported to DOE's Savannah River plant in South Carolina where it will remain until it is moved to a final disposal repository.

Since 1978, the United States has been trying to reduce the use of HEU internationally in …