EnergySolutions OKs deal to buy Duratek

"We acquired some good, basic technology" involving reprocessing as carried out in the United Kingdom today, Creamer said. As America moves forward with reprocessing, he said he hopes EnergySolutions will be part of the effort.

"We believe that rather than Yucca Mountain or rather than PFS, we should be doing what the rest of the world has been doing," Creamer said. That is, reprocessing fuel rods.

Yucca Mountain is the name for the federal government's proposed permanent repository for the highly radioactive rods. PFS, or Private Fuel Storage, is the proposed temporary storage site for fuel rods that utilities would like to build in Skull Valley, Tooele County.

In 1976, Creamer said, then-President Jimmy Carter decided the United States would not get into reprocessing and issued a presidential order to that effect. Carter was worried about nuclear proliferation, because 3 percent or 4 percent of the reprocessed nuclear material would be weapons-grade, he added.

Since then, the order has remained in effect. Other countries reprocess their spent fuel rods, however, because 96 percent of the material may be reusable.

Japan, Norway and Sweden ship material to the United Kingdom for reprocessing, and the British send back fuel and waste. Mainland European countries have France reprocess their fuel rods.

"It's a very common operation" worldwide, he said.

The stumbling block to America's reprocessing fuel is not so much technological as political, according to Creamer.

The country's stance may change on that, he believes, but he has "no idea" when.

Meanwhile, Samuel W. Bodman, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy, discussed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. In a briefing this week following President Bush's budget announcement, Bodman said the GNEP is a partnership to meet the world's electricity needs through safe, emissions-free nuclear power.

GNEP involves an initiative to separate and manage spent nuclear fuel "to separate the plutonium" and certain other material, and produce a substance not useful for making weapons but valuable to generate energy, Bodman said, according to a DOE news release.

Creamer commented, "It's obvious the administration is at least looking at it (reprocessing) positively, as are many members of Congress."

When the Duratek acquisition is complete, he said, the company will have major recycling and waste minimizing facilities at Oak Ridge and Memphis, Tenn., and Barnwell, S.C.

Regardless of whether reprocessing happens, EnergySolutions will be working on nuclear energy projects. "We think this is an incredibly important industry," Creamer said.