Washington (Platts)--30Aug2010/534 pm EDT/2134 GMT

Federal loan guarantees and a clear US policy on nuclear waste -- not government subsidies -- are needed to support the deployment of advanced technology for reprocessing spent fuel from nuclear power plants, an Areva executive said Monday. Alan Hanson, Areva executive vice president of technologies and used fuel management, responded on the sidelines of a subcommittee meeting of the blue ribbon commission on nuclear waste after another executive advocated for more financial support. Marvin Resnikoff, senior associate of Radioactive Waste Management Associates, told the subcommittee that no plants to reprocess utility spent nuclear fuel would be built without government subsidies. Companies will not want to tackle the "first-of-a-kind" financial risk and cost associated with building and operating a reprocessing plant alone, Resnikoff said. His comments came as the subcommittee on reactor and fuel cycle technology heard presentations Monday and Tuesday in Washington on alternative technologies for managing the country's inventory of utility spent fuel. The commission has an administration mandate to submit recommendations to US Energy Secretary Steven Chu in two years on alternative strategies for managing the country's commercial spent nuclear fuel. President Barack Obama's administration plans to terminate the $10 billion repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, September 30. The US abandoned plans to reprocess utility spent fuel during President Gerald Ford's administration because of proliferation concerns. By the time former President Ronald Reagan lifted the ban on reprocessing, it was seen as being uneconomical because the price of uranium was so low. --Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com Similar stories appear in Nucleonics Week. See more information at http://www.platts.com/Products/nucleonicsweek/