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April 15, 2013
* [enrichment-Paducah;n-biz-USEC-GE-Hitachi-International Isotopes] Proposal submitted to keep Paducah plant open, Lexington Herald Leader
United States Enrichment Corp. Vice President Paul Jacobson said the company submitted a proposal to the U.S. Department of Energy in February ... USEC makes the third confirmed company to submit a proposal... in response to the Department of Energy's Expression of Interest, or EOI, in February... GE-Hitachi and International Isotopes, of Idaho, confirmed they have submitted proposals, both suggesting to provide hundreds of jobs at the plant site... Chad Chancellor, head of Paducah Economic Development, said he has spoken with representatives of a fourth company that submitted a proposal. Chancellor would not identify that company or discuss the nature of its proposal, citing an agreement he signed to not disclose that information to the press.
April 7, 2009
LES Gas Centrifuge Uranium Enrichment Facility licensing contact
Mr. Stephen Cowne, Director
Quality and Regulatory Affairs
Louisiana Energy Services
P.O. Box 1789
Eunice, NM 88231
Other folks on the LES docket (Docket No.: 70-3103) distribution list
William Szymanski/DOE
Alton Dunn/Jal
Lindsay Lovejoy/NIRS
Gary Don Reagan/Hobbs
Daniel Stenger/H&H
David Trujillo/Lovington
Betty Richman/Tatum
Reinhard Hinterreither/LES
Gregory Smith/LES
Glen Hackler/Andrews
Gary Schubert/Lea Cty
John Parker/NMED
Matt White/Eunice
Richard Ratliff/Texas
M. Marriotte/NIRS
COÕClaire/Ohio
Lee Cheney/CNIC
Cindy Padilla/NMED
Joseph Malherek/PC
Ron Curry/NMED
Jon Goldstein/NMED
Tannis Fox/NMED
Patricia Madrid/NMAG
Glen Smith/NMAG
Roger Mulder/Texas
Clint Williamson/LES
March 10, 2008
Overview of USA enrichment prospects
General Electric Co. and USEC Inc., along with European rivals Urenco Ltd. and Areva Inc., are pushing billions worth of new US enrichment plants or technology so they don't miss the new uranium boom.
Officials from French-owned Areva have been tromping around eastern Idaho's lava and sagebrush steppe since last year near the 2,200-square-kilometer Idaho National Laboratory site, where US scientists have done nuclear research since 1949. Now, the company is trying to coax the State Legislature into giving it tax breaks to make building in Idaho more attractive. If it doesn't get them, Areva says it could build elsewhere. The Snake River Alliance, an Idaho anti-nuclear group, argues that enrichment plants are accompanied by health and environmental hazards. USEC's Paducah facility, for instance, has been targeted by federal lawsuits because of chemicals that contaminate groundwater there after a half-century of operations. The Idaho group also criticizes Areva's attempt to secure tax breaks for its project. "It's quite apparent that Areva is looking for a good deal of financial incentive to build a plant here," said Beatrice Brailsford, the group's program director in Pocatello. "It's simply a poor investment for both public money and public resources." Still, Idaho Falls, where the Idaho National Laboratory is the largest employer and many residents are comfortable with the idea of reactors in their backyard, wants the plant, which would employ about 250 people. Ron Longmore, Bonneville County's elected clerk, calculates the Areva facility would generate about $4 million annually in new property taxes, even with the proposed tax breaks. "We already have top scientists, those people associated with the Idaho National Laboratory," he said. "It would be a clean industry that would fit right in with our environment."
Meanwhile, General Electric is working on a laser process for enriching uranium at a test facility in North Carolina and has indicated its intent to apply for a full-scale project, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Urenco, with enrichment operations in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, is part of a consortium whose $1.5 billion enrichment facility has spawned a boomtown in southeastern New Mexico. The plant is due to open next year.
And Maryland-based USEC is building its American Centrifuge plant in the Ohio river town of Piketon; it expects to enrich enough uranium there by 2012 to supply a quarter of existing US demand. Once USEC's new Ohio plant is completed, it plans to close its aging facility in Paducah, Kentucky, which is now the only operating enrichment plant in the US.
Opponents, including the Union of Concerned Scientists, fear that the new enrichment capacity initiatives send the wrong message to countries like Iran. The group argues it's unclear the US really needs new facilities, when it could just import nuclear fuel from elsewhere.
Still, shipments from Russia, which now supplies about 40 percent of enriched uranium for US commercial reactors, are due to be cut roughly in half by 2013. And the aging enrichment facility in Kentucky is due to be shuttered. That means power plants here will have to fill the vacuum, including from new domestic suppliers.
"Even if the nuclear renaissance didn't happen, the US will need more enrichment services to respond to their existing domestic needs," said Laurence Pernot, a spokeswoman for Areva in Bethesda, Maryland.
"Multiple enrichment facilities provide customers with diversity of supply and competition," said Jeremy Derryberry, a USEC spokesman. "We believe the market can support all current planned enrichment capacity."
[Source: Associated Press, "Companies in race to provide fuel for US 'nuclear renaissance'", March 10, 2008]
February 26, 2008
This is from the front page of today's The Santa Fe New Mexican.
July 3, 2006
Enrichment - Areva to build $3.8-billion centrifuge-based plant at Pierrelatte; 2009 startup
France: Areva's supervisory board approved a plan to invest EUR3 billion (US$3.8 billion) in the construction of the planned Georges Besse II centrifuge enrichment plant at Pierrelatte. The board said the project 'bears witness' to Areva's 'ambition' to 'take maximum advantage of the sustainable upswing' in the nuclear fuel market. The Georges Besse II plant is scheduled for startup in 2009 and production of 4 million SWU in 2013, rising gradually to 7.5 million SWU in 2018.(Areva, 29 June; Financial Times, 30 June, p24; Nuclear Fuel, 3 July, p16; see also News Briefing 05.10-3)
[Source: World Nuclear Association, WNA
* [2006-03-03] Nuke chief: Y-12 integral to future plans
Frank Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel
October 16, 2005
* Australians eye global enrichment biz
* 2005-03-16: Report IG-0678: Audit Report on "Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant Cleanup Project at Portsmouth"
DOE:IG (pdf-410K)
* 2005-03-12: Science for Democratic Action, Volume 13 Number 1: Uranium Enrichment; Gorbachev and the U.S. People
IEER (pdf-445K)
* 2005-03-01: Laser enrichment: Separation anxiety
Jack Boureston and Charles D. Ferguson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
March 22, 2004
* Portsmouth GDP - autoclave - high condensate alarm prompted shutdown
September 28, 2003
Iran won't give up on enriching is own uranium
In a Persian language interview, Hamid Reza Asefi, spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, commented on IAEA's asking Iran to stop the uranium enrichment process. Mr. Asefi's response: "The enrichment of uranium and the peaceful use of nuclear technology are not issues over which we will compromise."
[Source: Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), "Iran: Foreign Ministry criticizes Bush, Putin over nuclear programme", September 28, 2003 (translated from Persian by BBC Monitoring)]
August 12, 2003
LES turns attention to New Mexico
Jerry Clift, the County Executive of Trousdale Tennessee received a letter Friday, from Louisiana Energy Services, informing of the company's decision to put the proposed Hartsville uranium enrichment plant project on hold and explore prospects for another site. Mr. Clift was extensively quoted in Greenville Sun article, but nary a kind word for LES appears. "They werenÕt interested in spending a little extra money to clean things up,Ó he said. ÒSo we werenÕt interested in them." The 260-acre site which LES was considering buying is now being considered as site for a new prison. If built, Mr. Clift said, the prison would bring about 400 jobs to Trousdale County. "LES wouldnÕt have employed 20 people from this county", he said, noting that most Trousdale County residents donÕt have the specialized education and technical skills needed for employment in a uranium-enrichment plant.
Mr. Clift expressed opinion that LES will abandon its Trousdale plans and focus, instead, on an eastern New Mexico site near Texas. "New Mexico is willing to give them anything and everything they want", Clift said. "Of course, weÕre not going to give them anything. TheyÕre (New Mexico officials) courting them (LES) pretty heavy. I just wish they had done it (looked seriously at New Mexico) six or eight months ago." Clift said lack of water may be a problem at the New Mexico site. "TheyÕre asking for $600 million more (from New Mexico officials) than it will cost to build it", he said. "That must be to get water to the site."
The Associated Press reported on Aug. 4 that officials from Lea County, N.M., and the small town of Eunice had visited a uranium enrichment plant in the Netherlands that is similar to a $1.2 billion facility the Louisiana Energy Services consortium wants to build in the U.S. The New Mexico officials were favorably impressed with the European plant. Lea County Commission Chairman Ross Black and Mayor Claydean Claiborne of the town of Jal in the southeast corner of New Mexico were enthusiastic about the safety and cleanliness of the facility in Almelo, the Netherlands. The AP quoted Mr. Claiborne as saying "The people there have nothing but respect for the facility and the people who operate it, and I have no qualms whatsoever." The Almelo plant toured by the officials is operated by LESÕ European partner, Urenco.
A $1.2 billion uranium enrichment plant for Eunice has already won support from the city of Eunice and from the Lea County Economic Development Corporation. If built near Eunice, which has a population of 2,562, the plant would likely be located four miles east of town, or almost on the Texas state line, according to the AP.
Louisiana Energy president Jim Ferland reportedly told the AP that the consortium hopes to have a number of issues resolved within the next month so that it can announce whether Lea County might replace Hartsville as the plant site. "In order to make a final decision to site the facility in Lea County, a significant number of issues relating to land acquisition, taxes, geology, environmental characterization and community support must be addressed", he said, adding "We are in the process of working through those issues."
Lea County Manager Dennis Holmberg said the county may issue up to $1.8 billion in revenue bonds for the Louisiana Energy project. The $1.8 billion figure was derived from the estimated value of the $1.2 billion plant in 2006.
The plant would employ 400 to 800 workers during the construction phase. It would be 2013 before the project is complete. Then, the plant would provide about 210 long-term jobs with a total annual payroll of more than $10 million and an average salary of $50,000, it has been said.
[Ref: Bill Jones (Sun staff writer), "LES Considering New Mexico Site For Its Uranium Enrichment Plant", The Greeneville Sun (TN), August 12, 2003]
August 6, 2003
July 7, 2003
* New today from NRC ADAMS system: Uranium enrichment - Fact Sheet (NRC, May 2003)
May 21, 2003
LES polls Trousdale residents on proposed enrichment plant
Louisiana Energy Services has commissioned a telephone survey to measure public opinion about the enrichment plant proposed by the company. One participant in the survey said he gave misleadingly neutral answers despite his strong opinion opposed to the plant. The Tennessean suggests that this sort of lack of candor may have been widespread. The company says the survey will help identify concerns that folks have so they can provide answers. Many of the questions on the 20-minute survey asked for opinions of elected leaders and local activist groups. [Source: Kelli Hewett and Kathy Carlson, "Firm planning nuclear plant surveys Trousdale", The Tennessean, May 21, 2003]
April 24, 2003
Criticality safety event report from Paducah - While replacing media in a seal trap, Paducah worker failed to follow both of the criticality control safety steps adopted to provide "double contingency" assurance. See Paducah's event report