It has been four years since Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free (KYNF) formed in opposition to the proposed nuclear and hazardous waste incinerator at the Department of Energy (DOE) complex located just 90 miles west of Jackson. Due to the challenge that KYNF and the Jackson community posed to the DOE, scientists and politicians from across the country, the type of incineration that has been used throughout all DOE complexes in the country has been disallowed, in favor of safer, and more environmentally sound alternatives. We should all be proud. Since this time, KYNF has continued to monitor, and officially comment on multiple projects that are planned, or are taking place at the site. In doing so, particular concern is paid to nuclear waste treatment and production issues that have the potential to negatively impact the lives, land and air which are within its reach.

For the fourth time in their history, our neighboring DOE site has undergone a name change. What we have historically known as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) is now becoming the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). This name change will also include an annexation of the once separate and distinct Argonne National Laboratory-West located on the site, and previously managed by the University of Chicago. The operating contractor for INL will also change from the massive Bechtel corporation, to a consortium called Battelle Energy Alliance, under a new $4.8 billion contract with the DOE. This new contractor consortium includes Battelle, BWTX (which includes Bechtel), Electric Power Research Institute, Washington Group International, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The implications of the new INL nomenclature indicates a wider mission change from a site dedicated primarily to nuclear waste clean-up, to a nationally designated site for nuclear power research and production. One of the new missions that KYNF feels compelled to share with the community, is the plan for this re-structured INL to become the nation’s centralized site for the production of plutonium-238 (Pu-238) which will be used as fuel to power future NASA space missions to Pluto and beyond.

Two weeks ago KYNF was invited to attend a scoping meeting with the Program Director for Radioisotope Power Systems from Washington D.C., along with the various other site contractors and managers. The point of this encounter was to introduce the concept of producing nuclear fuel for batteries to enable satellites and spacecraft to venture into deep space. These “space batteries” provide a sustained energy source by converting heat generated by the nuclear fuel (Pu-238), into electricity. Such radioisotope power systems (RPS) have been used to power the NASA mission probes of Galileo and Cassini.

The arrangement between NASA and the DOE to produce this nuclear power supply would shift the infrastructure of the program from what is now being accomplished at three DOE sites across the country, to a centralized operation at INL. The proposed consolidation of this program would include the production, purification and encapsulation of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238), at a projected cost of about $200 million. The actual costs of building the remaining infrastructure at INL which include a Radioisotope Thermal Electric Generator, new roads, and numerous other component parts, are projected into the further millions.

So why the concern? At this time KYNF is not calling on the community to oppose this process or to promote it, but certainly to pay attention to it. The DOE has begun its Scoping Process required to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and plans to hold a meeting in Jackson on December 7, from 7-9:30 pm at the Jackson Hole Middle School. The purpose of this scoping meeting will be to further inform the public of this new mission, and explain in more detail the technical processes and risks inherent in the three major components of RPS production which are: 1) the production of Plutonium- 238 (a particularly nasty isotope) from neptumium-237 (Np-237), 2) the purification and encapsulation of Pu-238 into a fuel form and 3) and the assembly, testing and delivery of the RPS for its intended final use in outer space. Further education on these issues will surely elucidate many more questions in the realm of economics, human and environmental safety, ethics, etc.

At this point, KYNF is most concerned about the utilization of the Advanced Test Reactor and other reactor fuel reprocessing operations at INL for the production of plutonium-238, a derivative of its strong cousin, Neptumium-237 (which will be shipped to INL in an oxide form from its production site at the DOE Savannah River site in South Carolina). It stands to pose an immediate safety and security challenge to those inside and in close proximity to INL, as well as establish future precedent for a nuclear or “Star Wars” space program which could be of unimaginable scale and proportion. The establishment of INL as the center for production of nuclear space batteries, will likely expand when NASA’s $11 billion nuclear rocket program moves into full testing mode. INL would then surely become the candidate site for testing of the nuclear rockets due to the site’s long testing history of Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion engines, its existing infrastructures to support the new program and the fact that it is located far away from major metropolitan areas. “Way out there in the Idaho desert somewhere”, one can almost hear the Washington bureaucrats say.

So, plutonium production for a mission to Pluto in our neighboring land of potatoes? It’s coming your way and your input will help decide or shape such decisions. If you are not able to give verbal comments about the program, and wish to do so you can email them to: ConsolidationEIS@nuclear.energy.gov