An Evaluation of Federal Support of the Barnwell Reprocessing Plant and the Department of Energy's Spent Fuel Storage Policy

In April 1977, the President announced a new policy to minimize risks of nuclear weapons proliferation which deferred indefinitely the commercialization of technologies that reprocess or depend on the recycle of plutonium. To carry out the policy, the President proposed that neither federal funding nor support should be given to complete a large commerical reprocessing facility being constructed at Barnwell, South Carolina. Later in 1977, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced that the federal government would begin accepting and taking title from utilities to spent nuclear fuel that previously was to be reprocessed.