USA: Uranium enrichment plant receives operating license

[pfpcnews]

Uranium enrichment plant receives operating license

By ASSOCIATED PRESS - June 28, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - A proposed uranium enrichment plant in southeastern New Mexico became the first major commercial nuclear facility to be licensed in the past 30 years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday.

The NRC presented an operating certificate to executives from Louisiana Energy Services for the proposed National Enrichment Facility, which would make fuel for commercial nuclear power plants in Eunice.

The facility will be run by Louisiana Energy Services, known as LES, which is made up of European-based Urenco, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. and minor U.S. partners.

The plant, under review for the past 2 1/2 years, would become the first U.S. installation to use centrifuge technology, rather than a process known as gaseous diffusion that has been around since World War II.

NRC chairman Nils Diaz presented the operating certificate to LES executives as eastern New Mexico officials and New Mexico congressional representatives watched.

The formal presentation of the operating certificate is the final step in the plant's approval process, congressional representatives said in a news release.

Sens. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., welcomed the licensing.

"This plant is a sign of things to come in terms of the resurgence of nuclear power," said Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Bingaman said the facility will supply about 25 percent of the nation's enrichment needs.

"This project will create well-paid short-term and long-term jobs, and will have an enormously positive economic impact on southeastern New Mexico," he said.

Pearce said: "This license marks the culmination of Lea County's two decade-long drive to free our economy from the fluctuation of oil and gas prices, as well as a major step forward in positioning our state on the cutting end of alternative energy development."

Urenco's board is expected to give final approval to the project July 5.

Company officials have said construction could begin in August, with the first production facilities scheduled for completion in late 2008.

The $1.4 billion project is expected to be completed in 2013.

Currently, there is no place in the United States to dispose of waste from such a plant.

Critics say LES hasn't determined how waste from the plant will be disposed.

Two watchdog groups based in the Washington, D.C., area Public Citizen and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service said they are considering whether to appeal the license to federal court.

"The bottom line is they don't know what they're going to do with the waste," said Michele Boyd, legislative director for energy programs at Public Citizen. "We should not be licensing plants like that."

LES in February 2005 reached an agreement with a French company, Areva Inc., to build a private deconversion facility to handle waste. No site has been selected for the facility, which also must be licensed by the NRC.

LES officials think the waste can be disposed of by shallow burial once it has gone through deconversion.

Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said an appeal to federal court is "under active consideration" and a decision should be made in the next few weeks.

He said the NRC policy for disposing of the waste is under review at the commission.

"This is exactly the kind of thing that's supposed to be decided before you get the license, not afterward," he said.

Mariotte said the waste would include uranium 238 and hydrogen-flouride, which is toxic and corrosive.

"It's nasty stuff and my own belief is that if things stay as they are and that plant operates, the waste will never leave New Mexico," Mariotte said.

SOURCE:
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/45663.html