Re: story on uranium enrichment on NPR

[Susan L Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>]

Phil,



Thanks for tracking this down and posting it to the list.  It is

particularly timely in that the Draft Environmental Assessment for the

Transfer of Facilities and Equipment to the United States Enrichment

Corporation Centrifuge Research and Development Project at the East

Tennessee Technology Park [the former K-25 Site at Oak Ridge] has been

released for public comment.  Aside from my perennial criticism about

the use of stale data (1990 housing data?) in the EA, I question why

this effort is going forward at all. 



Urenco is trying to site a commercially viable centrifuge plant (one

potential site is in Erwin, TN) and there is a lot of HEU just waiting

to be downblended (not to mention the MOX likely to be available).  It's

unclear to me how much the US Government will be subsidizing USEC's

research, but I have suspected this is a payoff in part to compensate

Portsmouth for closure of its GDP (a suspicion intensified upon learning

there is a shuttered centrifuge project located at PORTS).



Does anyone on RadSafe see potential for a huge jump in the domestic

market for reactor fuel that might justify competing centrifuge plants

in the US?  Or is this really a bailout for USEC, which obviously won't

be able to compete with Urenco if all it has is the relatively

inefficient Paducah GDP?



A few of my own [cynical] thoughts,

Susan

-- 

.....................................................

Susan L. Gawarecki, Ph.D., Executive Director

Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee

102 Robertsville Road, Suite B, Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Toll free 888-770-3073 ~ www.local-oversight.org

.....................................................

************************************************************************

You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,

send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu  Put the text "unsubscribe

radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.

You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/