Uranium enrichment starting at federally supported demonstration project in Ohio - AOL
Uranium enrichment starting at federally supported demonstration project in Ohio
PIKETON, Ohio (AP) — Uranium enrichment is getting underway this week at a facility in southern Ohio, a federally authorized demonstration project considered critical to produce the type of fuel needed for newer, more efficient nuclear reactors.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Centrus Energy Corp. will be producing the high-assay, low-enriched uranium at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, about 68 miles (109 kilometers) south of Columbus. That form of uranium contains far more of the isotope U-235 than is typically found in current nuclear reactor fuel.
At an event on Wednesday, Centrus chief executive and president Daniel Poneman called it “the first launch of a new U.S. technology uranium enrichment plant to begin production in this country since 1954,” the Columbus Dispatch reported. He said it will fuel smaller and more efficient nuclear reactors that will have longer operating cycles as well as fuel for existing reactors.
The 3,800-acre (1,500 hectare) site was where uranium had been enriched until 2001 at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Poneman said the U.S. has since become the world's biggest importer of enriched uranium. Cleanup and decontamination of the Portsmouth plant are continuing.
Centrus now has 125 workers there, but hundreds more may be added.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: nuclear
Nuclear energy provides almost 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply. Advocates have called for an expanded role for nuclear as an emissions-free fuel source. But the economics of building new reactors are daunting. In addition, lingering safety concerns are an institutionalized part of the calculation of nuclear regulation, and highly radioactive nuclear waste remains a can that public officials have been inclined to kick down the road. The Energy Information Administration projects a sharp decline in nuclear power generation over the next decade, as new nuclear plants — two are planned — are more than offset by anticipated retirements of several operating reactors.