GNEP $16M Award to Four Consortia

The Department of Energy announced on July 30th that four consortia have been selected to receive up to $16M. They will develop conceptual design studies, cost estimates, and preliminary schedules for building a spent fuel recycling center and advanced reactor under the Global Nucelar Energy Program (GNEP). Thge consortia are led, respectively, by AREVA, EnergySolutions, GE-Hitachi, and General Atomics.

Last May Clay Sell, Deputy Secretary of Energy, announced that a total of $60M would be available over the next two years for these types of projects. That assumes Congress doesn't stop the program. So far support for GNEP in both the House and the Senate has been lackluster at best. The House cut the administration's request by nearly 75% and the Senate cut it by more than 50%. If a conference committee splits the difference, funding in FY2008 will be somewhere between $150M-180M.