GNEP Membership Grows, Future Uncertain

By Miles A. Pomper

As the Bush administration winds down, its controversial Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) continues to win additional adherents abroad, but faces ongoing opposition at home.

Bush administration officials have claimed that GNEP, which seeks to develop new nuclear technologies and new international nuclear fuel arrangements, will cut nuclear waste and decrease the risk that an anticipated growth in the use of nuclear energy worldwide could spur nuclear weapons proliferation. Critics assert that the administration’s course would exacerbate the proliferation risks posed by the spread of spent fuel reprocessing technology, be prohibitively expensive, and fail to significantly ease waste disposal challenges without any certainty that the claimed technologies will ever be developed.

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