Yggdrasil Institute: Uranium Enrichment Project

The Uranium Industry Annual 2000 reports that uranium was obtained in 2000 from one underground mine and from four in situ leaching operations.[ii] (In in-situ leaching, the uranium-bearing ore remains in its geological deposit. A liquid that will leach the ore is injected through wells into the deposit; and then pumped out through other wells.)

The underground mine went on standby in 2001; one of the four in situ operations closed during 2001. Thus, the only active mines as of October 2001 are the three in situ operations.

Production: total to around 2001, 17 million pounds U3O8 (6500 metric tons of uranium)

Cotter obtained the land for the Schwartzwalder mine in 1965.[iii] General Atomics acquired the Cotter Corporation from Commonwealth Edison Company in early 2000.[iv] Subsequently General Atomics decided “to place the mine on temporary standby and begin reclamation of the property.”[v]

Crow Butte

Owner: Uranerz US 67.691% (Cameco 100%) ; Geomex Minerals Inc., USA 32.309% (Cameco 100%)

Nominal capacity: 1,000,000 pounds U308 per year but could expand to 2,000,000 pounds per year[vi]; 380 metric tons uranium per year[vii]

Actual production: 800,000 pounds U3O8 (308 metric tons uranium) in both 2000 and 2001[viii]

Highland

Owner: Power Resources, Inc. 74.25% (Cameco 100%); Geomex Minerals Inc., USA, known as Converse County Mining Venture 25.75% (Cameco 100%)

Nominal capacity: 1,000,000 pounds of U3O8 per year; could be raised to 2,000,000 pounds per year [x] ; 580 metric tons uranium per year[xi]

Cameco plans to suspend development activities and reduce annual production gradually from 700,000 pounds U3O8 (269 metric tons uranium) in 2001 to 300,000 pounds U3O8 (115 metric tons uranium) in 2003, with the option of increasing production if uranium prices rise.[xiii] In July 2000, Power Resources requested a ten-year license renewal.[xiv]

Smith Ranch

Nominal capacity: 2,000,000 pounds of U308 per year; 1150 metric tons uranium per year[xv]

Owner: 71% by Cogéma Mining Inc., known as COMIN (Cogéma Resources Inc.100%)[xvii]

The mine ceased operation in June 2000. Cogéma is currently restoring the groundwater. Restoration of the groundwater is expected to be completed in 2005. Final decommissioning and surface reclamation will then take place.[xix]

Hydro Resources has received a license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to begin construction of in situ leaching operations on three sites. It does not plan to start until the price of uranium rises to $15 a pound.[xx] Residents of the area, and others are working to prevent the mining.

II. CONCENTRATION

In 2000, one conventional mill and four unconventional plants (in situ leaching operations) were in operation. The conventional mill closed in 2001; the three in situ operations active at the end of 2000 are still active as of October 2001. Five conventional mills were on standby in 2000 and remain on standby in 2001. One of the five processes waste materials containing uranium.

II.A. Conventional mill

Canon City Mill

General Atomics bought Cotter Corp. from Commonwealth Edison Co. in early 2000.[xxiii]

Nominal capacity: 7000 short tons of ore per day[xxv]; 3300 metric tons uranium per year[xxvi]

Recovered uranium by processing mine water solution in 2000 and in mid 2001.[xxvii]

Recovered uranium by processing the waste stream at a mine water treatment plant during 2000. In the past it has processed the waste stream at the end of the year.[xxx]

Nominal capacity: 750 short tons of ore per day;[xxxiii] 380 metric tons uranium per year[xxxiv]

Nominal capacity: 3000 short tons of ore per day [xxxvii]; 350 metric tons uranium per year[xxxviii]

Owner: International Uranium (USA) Corp. (International Uranium Holdings Corp. 100%)[xxxix]

The mill now processes “alternate feed,” ie waste materials containing uranium, in particular waste from the federal Formerly Utilized Remedial Action Program (Fusrap). It sells any uranium that it recovers and disposes of the remaining material in the tailings site at the mill.

II.B. Unconventional plants

The four in situ leaching operations (Crow Butte, Highland, Smith Ranch, and Christensen Ranch) are described above. In the in situ operations the liquid that is pumped out of the ground is treated on site to concentrate the uranium.

During 2000 two in situ leaching operations that were no longer active recovered some uranium from the processing of mine water and waste streams (as did the conventional mills Ambrosia Lake and Dawn Ford, described above).

Recovered uranium by processing water from in situ mine restoration during 2000.

III. CONVERSION

Honeywell Specialty Chemicals Plant

Honeywell International Corp. was formed in December 1999 by the merger of Honeywell Inc., based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with Allied Signal Inc., based in Morris Township, New Jersey. Allied Signal brought to the new company the Allied-Signal uranium conversion plant, now known as the Honeywell Specialty Chemicals Plant.[l]

ConverDyn, a general partnership between affiliates of Honeywell and General Atomics, is the exclusive agent for conversion sales.[li] The firm was created in 1992 by Allied Signal and General Atomics to market conversion to uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

This was the year in which General Atomics placed its Sequoyah Fuels Corporation plant, which also converted uranium oxide to UF6, on stand-by.[lii] That plant, located in Gore, Oklahoma, is now undergoing decommissioning.[liii]

Because of an oversupply of UF6 on the world market, the Honeywell plant had to cut production of UF6 by 25% in 1999. Therefore, the plant diversified and now offers chemical products in addition to UF6.[liv]

IV. ENRICHMENT

Location: McCracken County in western Kentucky (about ten miles west of Paducah)

Nominal capacity: 11.3 million SWU[lvi] per year as of 1999[lvii]; now rated by USEC at 8 million SWU

Actual production: 5 million SWU anticipated by USEC in its fiscal year 2002[lviii]

USEC (first as a government-owned corporation and then as a private entity) has leased the uranium enrichment facilities at Paducah and also at Portsmouth (See below) from the US Department of Energy since 1993. Until 2001 Paducah was authorized by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to enrich uranium hexafluoride to only 2.75% uranium 235 by weight.[lix] The Paducah plant shipped the UF6 that it enriched to the K-25 plant at Oak Ridge[lx] until that plant shut down, or to Portsmouth to be enriched to the appropriate level for civilian or military use. Recently USEC upgraded the Paducah plant to enable it to stand alone. March 19, 2001, the NRC authorized Paducah to enrich uranium to 5.5% uranium 235.[lxi] However, according to an informed source, Paducah had not reached that level as of November 5, 2001. Most nuclear power plants use uranium enriched to between 3.5% and 5% uranium 235. Paducah will continue to ship enriched UF6 to Portsmouth for an indefinite period of time, but only for final packaging and shipping.

Location: Pike County in southcentral Ohio (Piketon is the nearest town; Portsmouth is twenty-five miles to the south)

The Portsmouth plant enriched UF6 to as high as 97% uranium 235, until the government stopped producing highly enriched uranium (HEU) in 1991. Afterwards it enriched up to 10% uranium 235.[lxiv] However, USEC blended down 13 tons of HEU UF6, containing about 2 million SWU, at the Portsmouth plant. Blending was completed in 1998.[lxv] USEC stopped enriching uranium at the Portsmouth plant in May 2001.[lxvi] Only the plant’s transfer and shipping stations remain in operation.

Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announced in October 2000 that the plant would be placed on cold standby for five years for possible restart in the event of a significant disruption in the nation’s supply of enriched uranium. He also pledged that DOE would finance a pilot centrifuge plant at Portsmouth.[lxvii] The Bush administration has funded the first two years of cold standby,[lxviii] but as of early November 2001 funding for the remaining years and for the centrifuge pilot was in question.

V.A. Low-enriched uranium

[General Electric Co. 51%; Hitachi Ltd. 24.5%; Toshiba Corporation 24.5%])[lxix]

General Electric Company (GE), Hitachi, Ltd. and Toshiba Corp. established Global Nuclear Fuel, an international nuclear-fuel joint venture, January 1, 2000. The joint venture has two subsidiaries: Global Nuclear Fuel—Americas and Japan Nuclear Fuel (JNF), the latter established by the three partners in 1967. The three partners transferred their nuclear fuel marketing, design, and development operations to the two subsidiaries. Both Global Nuclear Fuel—Americas and Japan Nuclear Fuel develop, design, and manufacture fuel for boiling water reactors.[lxxi]

Nominal capacity: sources differ: 400 metric tons heavy metal per year [lxxiii]; 200 metric tons of fuel assemblies[lxxiv]

Actual production: in 1998, 650 fuel assemblies equaling 300 tons of fuel[lxxv]

At Lynchburg, Framatome ANP fabricates fuel assemblies (but not UO2 powder and pellets) for commercial nuclear power plants, both boiling water and pressurized water.[lxxvi] The plant receives uranium oxide pellets, which it loads into fuel rods. It then bundles the fuel rods into assemblies. At Lynchburg but across town from the fuel plant, Framatome ANP inspects, repairs, and services nuclear power plants.

In the past, the two types of operations (fuel production and the servicing of power plants) were performed by two subsidiaries of the Framatome Technologies Group (FTG): Framatome Cogéma Fuels and Framatome Technologies Inc.[lxxvii] The parent company of FTG was Framatome S.A., headquartered in Paris.

Framatome Cogema Fuels was formerly B&W Fuel Co., the fuel operation of Babcock and Wilcox. [lxxviii] Framatome Technologies was formerly B&W Nuclear Technologies.[lxxix]

The French Framatome Group and the German company Siemens merged to form Framatome ANP January 31, 2001. Framatome ANP became a subsidiary of the new French nuclear holding company Areva in September 2001.[lxxx]

Framatome ANP is one of the major subcontractors that will help provide Mox fuel fabrication and reactor irradiation services for DOE’s plutonium disposition program.[lxxxi]

Nominal capacity: 700 metric tons heavy metal (ie uranium as a metal) per year [lxxxiv] (see below)

The facility fabricates fuel for boiling water and pressurized water reactors.[lxxxv] In the process, it produces UO2 powder (by converting enriched UF6 to UO2), UO2 pellets, and finished assemblies. As of 1999, it supplied UO2 powder to customers in Japan and pellets to what is now Framatome ANP’s Lynchburg plant. According to Ralf Gueldner, a Siemens executive, the plant has a capacity of 1,000 to 1,200 metric tons per year for UO2 powder conversion, and totals about 700 metric tons per year in pelletizing and rod and bundle assembling capacity [lxxxvi]

The plant was formerly operated by the German Siemens Power Corporation, a subsidiary of Siemens Nuclear Power GmbH, which acquired it from the former Exxon Nuclear.[lxxxvii]

ABB-Combustion-Engineering Plant

Purpose: manufacture of fuel rods for civilian reactors and, in the early years, military projects

June 29, 2001 when the Hematite plant ceased production,[xc] it was manufacturing fuel for boiling water and pressurized water reactors. The main raw material was enriched UF6, which the plant transformed into UO2 for incorporation into the pellets that it placed in fuel rods.

The first owner of the facility was Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, which converted uranium hexafluoride unto uranium oxide and uranium metal for the Atomic Energy Commission and manufactured fuel for commercial power plants.[xci]

By the 1980s, the facility was owned by Combustion Engineering. In 1989, the Swiss-based ABB bought the plant, which then became known as the ABB-Combustion Engineering plant.[xcii] For years it had fabricated only pressurized water reactor fuel, but after the purchase by ABB, it began to make, in addition, boiling water reactor fuel, based on technology from ABB Atom.[xciii]

In 2000 British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL) completed acquisition of the commercial nuclear power business of ABB and integrated it into Westinghouse Electric Co. (BNFL had purchased what is now Westinghouse Electric from the CBS Corporation in 1999.)[xciv] Westinghouse Electric Co. announced May 5, 2000 that it would close the Hematite facility and consolidate most of its US fuel operations at its Columbia, South Carolina plant.[xcv]

Westinghouse is to submit a plan for cleaning up the Hematite plant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December of 2001. It will then study records and examine the soil and water. Actual cleanup and decommissioning are expected to begin around 2004.[xcvi]

Westinghouse Electric Co.--Columbia

The plant currently manufactures fuel for pressurized water reactors and for Russian VVER.[xcviii]

In 1999 British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL) purchased what is now Westinghouse Electric from the CBS Corporation. (The corporation that was originally named Westinghouse bought CBS in 1995 and became the CBS Corporation in 1997.)[xcix]

In 2000 BNFL purchased the commercial nuclear power business of the Swiss-based ABB. It integrated this business into Westinghouse Electric Co. As a result, Westinghouse Electric Co. became the owner of the fuel fabrication plant in Hematite, Missouri, that had belonged to ABB-Combustion Engineering.

Westinghouse has shut down the Hematite plant and consolidated most of its fuel operations at Columbia; but it has not carried to Columbia the manufacture of boiling water reactor fuel carried out at Hematite.[c]

V.B. Plutonium

Operator: DCS (Duke Engineering Services, Cogéma, Stone and Webster, and others)

In March 1999, DOE awarded a contract to a consortium known as DCS for design, construction, operation, and deactivation of a plant to make mixed oxide fuel (MOX—uranium oxide and plutonium oxide). The contract also assigns to DCS a responsibility for irradiation of the fuel in commercial reactors. The purpose is to render plutonium removed from old nuclear weapons unsuitable for reuse in new weapons. DCS is composed of Duke Engineering Services, Cogéma, and Stone and Webster, supported by a host of subcontractors including Framatome Cogéma Fuels (now Framatome ANP), Nuclear Fuel Services, and the Belgian Belgonucléaire. The consortium currently plans to irradiate the MOX fuel in Duke’s Catawba (York, South Carolina) and McGuire (Huntersville, North Carolina) reactors.[cii] Other utilities have expressed an interest in weapons MOX fuel use and DOE has said it would look into using additional reactors at the program progresses.

Construction of the plant is dependent on licensing and funding. In the fall of 2001 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of considering whether to license the plant and is compiling an Environmental Impact Statement to provide a basis for its decision.[ciii] Also, an environmental impact statement is being prepared. Congress has provided funding for the 2002 Fiscal Year. However, the Bush administration is reviewing the entire plutonium disposition program. The plans are hotly contested by numerous safe energy, environmental, and peace organizations that advocate other methods of rendering the plutonium unusable.

Location: a 500-acre site on a peninsula in the James River, at Lynchburg, Virginia (Schnabel)

BWXT is licensed to handle highly enriched uranium.[civ] The Naval Nuclear Fuel Division of BWXT manufactures fuel for the US Navy and plate-type fuel for reactors dedicated to research, testing, and teaching.[cv]

Among the other work carried out by BWX Technologies at Lynchburg is the downblending of highly enriched uranium. In recent years the company has undertaken two major downblending projects: 1) downblending 50 metric tons of uranium from DOE’s Portsmouth and Oak Ridge plants for USEC. BWXT received the material in December 1999 and expects to complete the work by mid-2005; (2) downblending 5.8 t of uranium 235 that the United States removed from Kazakhstan in 1994. The uranium was downblended under a 1995 Project Sapphire contract with DOE.

The plant operates a uranium recovery program, which includes the recovery of uranium from components such as scrap metal and from excess material from fuel fabrication.[cvi]

The plant originally belonged to the Atomic Energy Division; later to the Naval Nuclear Fuel Division. It was acquired by McDermott in 1978. BWXT was formed in 1997.[cvii]

Purpose: production of fuel and materials for fuel, for civilian and military purposes

NFS is licensed to process or store up to 7,000 kg of HEU. Between 1978 and 1999, NFS was the sole facility “to convert uranium hexafluoride into the chemical and physical form used in naval reactor fuel elements.”[cix] Presumably this situation has not changed.

The company, which has had several owners including Texaco, made nuclear fuel from highly-enriched uranium for nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers for the US Navy from late 1967 to 1992. It resumed production for the Navy in 1996 under a contract that extends through 2002.[cx]

In the period during which NFS was not under contract with the Navy, it developed and patented a process for downblending HEU, which it transferred to DOE as part of an exchange arrangement with the agency. The company has also developed capabilities in dismantling and decontaminating nuclear facilities.

NFS has carried out various downblending projects including downblending, in 1998, HEU scrap material from DOE for four lead assemblies for testing in TVA’s Sequoyah-2 reactor.[cxi] The test was successful. Now NFS is helping to provide TVA with full reloads of fuel from downblended HEU.

Under a contract with TVA, NFS will be responsible for converting uranium-aluminum alloy and highly-enriched uranium metal into low-enriched uranyl nitrate solution. For this purpose NFS will set up a new processing operation inside an existing building at Erwin. NFS, together with Framatome ANP Richland, will also be responsible for converting low-enriched uranyl nitrate solution, from the NFS facility and from Savanna River, to low-enriched uranium oxide. To perform this step, NFS and Framatome ANP will construct at Erwin another new facility, which is scheduled to go into operation in late 2003.[cxii]

NFS fabricated MOX fuel from 1965-1972.[cxiii] As a result, NFS is a member of the team that will help provide MOX fuel fabrication and reactor irradiation services for DOE’s plutonium disposition program (See above, under Mox Fuel Fabrication Facility).[cxiv]

Savanna River Site

Purpose: originally, the production of nuclear materials for weapons; today, management of these materials and radioactive wastes

As of November 2000, a downblending facility was under construction at the Savanna River site.[cxvi] The facility will downblend at least 16 tons of slightly contaminated or off-specification HEU to be used in low-enriched uranium fuel for the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Sequoyah, Brown’s Ferry, and, possibly, Watts Barr plants.[cxvii]

VI. NUCLEAR REACTORS

Envirocare’s first license was for the disposal of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM). Projects involving large volumes of contaminated soils are still its primary focus, but it can now also dispose of certain other types of materials, including various Class A low-level radioactive wastes, byproduct material, and mixed waste (waste that is radioactive and chemically toxic). Envirocare treats mixed waste in special facilities before storing it. A stabilization facility, using reduction/oxidation, is authorized to treat 150 tons of material per day. Waste is disposed of in “above-ground, engineered disposal cells.”[cxxi]

Current storage: as of mid- 2001, 28 million cubic feet of waste stored.[cxxiv]

The 235 acres on which the disposal facility is located are owned by the State of South Carolina, which leases them to Chem-Nuclear. Containerized waste is placed “in large concrete vaults located in engineered earthen trenches (disposal cells) excavated up to 30 feet below grade.” The “older, filled” trenches are capped. Ninety percent of the available 31 million cubic feet of disposal volume have been filled.

July 1, 2000, Connecticut, South Carolina, and New Jersey formed the Atlantic compact.[cxxvi] The South Carolina legislature enacted legislation in 2000 that will close the site to waste from states other than those in the compact in 2008.[cxxvii]

U.S. Ecology site

Location: 100 acres within DOE’s Hanford Reservation, 25 miles NW of Richland, Washington

Owner: US Department of Energy, which leases the site to the state of Washington[cxxviii]

U.S. Ecology receives A, B, and C low-level waste for disposal, but the company takes “low-level” radioactive waste only from the Northwest and Rocky Mountain Compact states. It accepts NORM and exempt waste from elsewhere.[cxxxi]

In 2001 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final standards for radioactivity for a deep underground repository at Yucca Mountain, and DOE released its Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation. According to DOE, the preliminary results in this report “indicate that the potential repository at Yucca Mountain would likely meet EPA radiation protection standards and proposed Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations.”[cxxxiii] In October, 2001, DOE held public hearings on whether it should recommend Yucca Mountain to Congress as the site for a “potential geological repository for nuclear waste.” The suitability of Yucca Mountain as a site for a waste repository is hotly contested. The potential consequences of volcanic activity, earthquakes, water seepage, as well as the true ownership of the land are some of the issues in dispute.

If Congress designates Yucca Mountain as the repository site, DOE must apply to the NRC for a license for the facility. In the fall of 2001, DOE indicates that it may not be ready to do so until 2004 or 2005. As of 2001, DOE’s target date for opening a repository is 2010.[cxxxiv]

As of November 2001, power plant operators are storing their irradiated fuel at the reactor site in storage pools and also, at certain plants, in dry storage casks.

Location: Skull Valley Goshute Reservation in Utah, 45 miles west of Salt Lake City

Capacity: 44,000 t of high-level waste in 4000 canisters[cxxxv] ; ie up to 40,000 metric tons of uranium[cxxxvi] in irradiated fuel.

The PFS consortium asked the NRC to license the facility for twenty years. Thus the intention is to store irradiated fuel until a permanent repository opens. The NRC may grant the license for what it calls an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) as early as the spring of 2002. The installation would occupy 820 acres of the Goshutes’ 18,000 acres. The chairman of the Skull Valley Band signed a lease with PFS without a vote by the band’s General Council. PFS is made up of eight utilities that own nuclear power plants.[cxxxvii] The chairman who signed the lease has been recalled by the tribe, and the new council does not support, or oppose, the lease agreement--in fact, most of the tribe has never seen it. Members of the Skull Valley Band have filed several contentions with the NRC, and the Atomic Safety Licensing Board will hold hearings in the spring of 2002.

Owl Creek Energy Project—planned

Location: 2700 acres of private land in the foothills of Owl Creek Mountain in central Wyoming

By law, the state legislature must approve the facility before it can be constructed, and the legislature cannot approve it until the federal government licenses a federal repository.[cxxxviii] The governor also has veto power over the project. The New Corporation proposes to store waste for up to forty years.[cxxxix]

[i] We include only facilities that are operating in 2001 or that operated in 2000 before closing down or that are planned. We have limited ourselves to installations that handle materials that have been or will be used in commercial reactors and to the reactors themselves. Thus we have not included research facilities even though they may develop and test reactor fuel. Many of the facilities described play or have played a military as well as a civilian role.

[ii] Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy, Uranium Industry Annual 2000, available at www.eia.doe.gov . (Hereafter UIA 2000)

[iii] Web site of the Cotter Corporation: www.cotterusa.com, accessed April 10 and October 1, 2001.

[iv] Nuclear Fuel, March 6, 2000.

[v] Web site of the Cotter Corporation.

[vi] Web site of Cameco, www.cameco.com, accessed October 8, 2001.

[vii] International Atomic Energy Commission, Nuclear Fuel Cycle Information System, available at www-nfcis.iaea.org. (Hereafter IAEA.)

[viii] Web site of Cameco.

[ix] Web site of Cameco, Uranium Resources and Reserves.

[x] Web site of Cameco.

[xi] IAEA.

[xii] Web site of Cameco, Uranium Resources and Reserves.

[xiii] Uranium Institute News Briefing 00.39, September 27, 2000.

[xiv] Web site of WISE Uranium Project, compiled by Peter Diehl, www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium , accessed August 2001. (Hereafter WISE U)

[xv] IAEA.

[xvi] WISE U.

[xvii] WISE U.

[xviii] IAEA

[xix] WISE U.

[xx] Malcolm Brenner, Crownpoint Uranium Mining, The Gallup Independent, [no date]; Larry DiGiovanni, The Gallup Independent, November 8, 2001.

[xxi] Web site of DOE’s Energy Information Administration, Total Production of Uranium Concentrate in the United States as of June 30, 2001. This Web page indicates that no conventional mills were in operation as of June 2001.

[xxii] UIA 2000.

[xxiii] NuclearFuel, March 6, 2000.

[xxiv] IAEA.

[xxv] UIA 2000.

[xxvi] IAEA.

[xxvii] Jonathan Cogan, Energy Information Administration, Personal Communication.

[xxviii] WISE U.

[xxix] UIA 2000.

[xxx] Jonathan Cogan, Energy Information Administration, Personal Communication.

[xxxi] WISE U.

[xxxii] IAEA

[xxxiii] UIA 2000

[xxxiv] IAEA

[xxxv] WISE U

[xxxvi] IAEA

[xxxvii] UIA 2000

[xxxviii] IAEA.

[xxxix] International Uranium Holdings Corp. [International Uranium Corp. 100%{Adolf H. Lundin—Geneva, Switzerland 34.3%, Directors and Officers as a group of eight people 37.5%}].

[xl] IAEA.

[xli] UIA 2000.

[xlii] WISE U.

[xliii] IAEA.

[xliv] WISE U.

[xlv] IAEA.

[xlvi] WISE U.

[xlvii] IAEA.

[xlviii] Julian Steyn, “Fuel Review; Conversion; Conversion Services,” Nuclear Engineering International, September 30, 2001, p. 3/5.

[xlix] IAEA.j

[l]www.nrc.gov/OPA/reports/, accessed August 2001.

[li] Web site of Converdyn, www.converdyn.com , accessed October 2001.

[lii] Business Wire, November 23, 1992.

[liii] Fact Sheet: Contaminated Site Cleanup, US NRC, November 2000. In 1987 the Sequoyah Fuels Corporation plant began converting depleted uranium hexafluoride into uranium tetrafluoride (green salts), and it continued this operation after it stopped production of uranium hexafluoride. The NRC halted production of uranium hexafluoride at the plant as the result of an accidental release of toxic gas a week before the company decided to put a final end to production. The capacity of the Sequoyah plant was 9090 t of uranium per year (IAEA).

[liv] Associated Press, July 24, 2000.

[lv] IAEA.

[lvi] The work of enriching uranium is denominated in Separative Work Units or SWU. To obtain one kilo of uranium enriched to 3.2% uranium 235, from 6.4 kilos of natural uranium, 4.2 SWU are necessary. Roughly 100,000 SWU are needed to provide sufficient enriched uranium to operate a 900 MW nuclear reactor for a year (Enerpresse, no. 6548, April 2, 1996, Document 1).

[lvii] US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Compliance Evaluation Report for the Renewal of Certificate of Compliance GDP-1, Revision 1, United States Enrichment Corporation, Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Docket 70-7001, January 1999, p. 6. (Hereafter NRC, Compliance, Paducah)

[lviii] United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), 10K report on fiscal year 2001 to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[lix] NRC, Compliance, Paducah.

[lx] The first gaseous diffusion plant to operate in the United States, K-25, was located at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Owned by the US Department of Energy and its predecessors, K-25, like Portsmouth, produced highly enriched uranium. It began operation in 1945 and was shut down in 1985 (IAEA). At the present time the K-25 plant is undergoing decontamination and decommissioning. The K-25 site as a whole, now known as the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP), is gradually being “reindustrialized.” During 2000, the University of Tennessee—Battelle (contractor for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) worked at the K-25 site, under a DOE-approved Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, on developing centrifuge technology for enriching uranium (USEC, 2001 Annual Report, p.15).

[lxi] NRC, Office of Public Affairs, Region III, Press Release, No. III-01-011, March 21, 2001.

[lxii] IAEA.

[lxiii] US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Compliance Evaluation Report for the renewal of Certificate of Compliance GDP-2, Revision 1, United States Enrichment Corporation, Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Docket 70-7002, January 1999, p. 19. (Hereafter NRC, Compliance, Portsmouth.)

[lxiv] NRC, Compliance, Portsmouth.

[lxv] John Longenecker and Ron Witzel, “Fuel Review: Market Trends: Enrichment,” Nuclear Engineering International, September 30, 1999.

[lxvi] Platt’s Nuclear News Flashes, May 11, 2001.

[lxvii] US DOE, Press Release, October 6, 2000.

[lxviii] US DOE, Press Release, March 1, 2001.

[lxix] WISE U.

[lxx] IAEA.

[lxxi] Press Release from Hitachi Ltd., January 6, 2000.

[lxxii] IAEA.

[lxxiii] IAEA.

[lxxiv] NuclearFuel, December 13, 1999, p. 8.

[lxxv] Megan Schnabel, The Roanoke Times, October 19, 1999.

[lxxvi] NuclearFuel, December 13, 1999, p. 8; Web site of Framatome, www.framatech.com/about.asp. , accessed August 2001.

[lxxvii] Framatome Technologies Inc. was owned 100% by the Framatome Technologies Group; Framatome Cogéma Fuels was co-owned by the group and by Cogéma.

[lxxviii] Schnabel.

[lxxix] www.framatech.com/about.asp .

[lxxx] Agence France Presse, September 3, 2001.

[lxxxi] PR Newswire, March 22, 1999.

[lxxxii] IAEA.

[lxxxiii] NuclearFuel, June 15, 1998.

[lxxxiv] IAEA.

[lxxxv] IAEA.

[lxxxvi] NuclearFuel, December 13, 1999, p. 8.

[lxxxvii] NuclearFuel, December 13, 1999, p. 8; September 18, 2000, p. 4.

[lxxxviii] St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2001.

[lxxxix] IAEA.

[xc] Tim Rowden and William Allen, St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Scripps Howard News Service, July 4, 2001.

[xci] St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2001; Web site of Mallinckrodt, www.mallinckrodt.nl/ , accessed August 2001.

[xcii] Tim Rowden, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 2, 2000; Nuclear Fuel, Sep 20, 1999.

[xciii] NuclearFuel, January 10, 2000.

[xciv] Timeline on the Web site of Westinghouse Electric, www.westinghouse.com , accessed August 2001. In 1995 Westinghouse bought CBS. In 1996, Westinghouse sold its defense electronics business and in 1997 it put its remaining industrial divisions up for sale and became CBS Corp. In 1999 BNFL contracted to buy CBS’s commercial nuclear power business, now known as Westinghouse Electric.

[xcv] NuclearFuel, May 15, 2000; Westinghouse Press Release, May 5, 2001.

[xcvi] St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 1, 2001.

[xcvii] IAEA.

[xcviii] Mike Asquino, Public Relations, Westinghouse Electric, Personal Communication.

[xcix] Timeline, on www.westinghouse.com .

[c] Westinghouse Electric Co., Press Releases, May 2 and June 19, 2000; Asquino.

[ci] Web site of Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), www-nirs.org , accessed October 2001.

[cii] PR Newswire, March 22, 1999.

[ciii] Pat Ortmeyer, WAND, Personal Communication; Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Alert, May 16, 2001.

[civ] William C. Wallack, NuclearFuel, November 27, 2000; Schnabel.

[cv] Web site of BWXT, www.bwxt.com , accessed August 2001.

[cvi] Wallack, November 27, 2000.

[cvii] Web site of BWXT.

[cviii] Angela K. Brown, Associated Press, February 11, 2000; Stephen I. Schwartz et al., US Nuclear Weapons Research, Development, Testing, and Production, and Naval Nuclear Propulsion Facilities, revised October 12, 1999, on the Web site of the Brookings Institution, www.brook.edu .

[cix] Web site of Nuclear Fuel Services, www.nuclearfuelservices.com , accessed August 2001 ; Schwartz.

[cx] Brown; Web site of Nuclear Fuel Services, www.nuclearfuelservices.com .

[cxi] www.nuclearfuelservices.com (swords into ploughshares) ; Wayne Barber, NuclearFuel, March 8, 1999. Siemens in Richlands, Washington, made the low-enriched uranium into pellets, and Framatome Cogema Fuels, Lynchburg, Virginia, placed the pellets in fuel assemblies for the test. The fuel performed satisfactorily in the reactor for eighteen months.

[cxii] Web site of Nuclear Fuel Services.

[cxiii] IAEA.

[cxiv] PR Newswire, March 22, 1999.

[cxv] Schwartz.

[cxvi] NuclearFuel, November 27, 2000.

[cxvii] NuclearFuel, April 16, 2001.

[cxviii] NuclearFuel, April 3, 2000, p. 15.

[cxix] Julia Heavirland, Envirocare spokesperson, Personal Communication.

[cxx] Julia Heavirland declined to answer a question about how much of the available space has been filled.

[cxxi] Web site of Envirocare, www.envirocareutah.com .

[cxxii] Web site of Chem-Nuclear, www.chem-nuclear.com, accessed October 2001.

[cxxiii] Judith Johnsrud, on the Sierra Club’s Web site, www.sierraclub.org , accessed August 2001.

[cxxiv] Web site of Chem-Nuclear , www.chem-nuclear.com , accessed October 2001.

[cxxv] Johnsrud.

[cxxvi] Web site of Chem-Nuclear.

[cxxvii] Jeffrey Collins, “Nuclear Plant’s Operating Costs Set,” The State, May 23, 2001.

[cxxviii] Michael R. Ault, US Ecology, Personal Communication.

[cxxix] Web site of US Ecology, www.usecology.com .

[cxxx] Web site of US Ecology.

[cxxxi] Spokesperson for US Ecology, Personal Communication

[cxxxii] DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico is a repository in a salt formation for another category of waste, transuranic waste. WIPP opened in 1991. It receives primarily, if not entirely, military waste, since civilian nuclear power reactors do not normally produce what is termed transuranic waste unless their fuel is reprocessed. In the United States civilian fuel is not reprocessed.

[cxxxiii] DOE announcement at www.ymp.gov/timeline/psse/index.htm .

[cxxxiv] Elaine Hiruo, NuclearFuel, September 17, 2001.

[cxxxv] Public Citizen et al., Press Release, July 26, 2001.

[cxxxvi] US NRC, Industry Consolidation, Preliminary Impact Assessments, [2001], p. 5.

[cxxxvii] Public Citizen et al., Press Release, July 26, 2001.

[cxxxviii] Ivan Stuart, Summary of a presentation to the Philadelphia 1999 Meeting of DOE’s Transportation External Coordination Working Group.

[cxxxix] trib.com Information Services, January 25, 1999.

The Commercial Nuclear Fuel Chain[i]

I. EXTRACTION

Crow Butte