Piketon Plant: Uranium Project May Go on Hold

Oh, great! This leaves USEC's gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, KY still the only operational nuclear enrichment plant in the US.

Thursday, July 9, 2009 3:06 AM

By Jonathan Riskind

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

WASHINGTON -- The planned uranium-enrichment plant project in Piketon, Ohio, faces "demobilization" beginning in August unless the federal government grants a $2 billion loan guarantee, says USEC Inc.

USEC, the suburban Washington company trying to build the $3.5 billion advanced-technology plant on the same site where it ran the enrichment facility closed in 2001, has indicated for months that without the loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, the Piketon project would fail to get needed financing.

USEC has spent about $1.4 billion to build a test plant and begin work on the full-scale commercial facility, which would make fuel for nuclear power plants. The company says the enrichment plant could be operating by early 2011.

An Energy Department spokesman declined on Tuesday to discuss the status of the USEC request. However, Energy Secretary Steven Chu has made it a priority to speed up the loan guarantee process.

USEC made its application more than 10 months ago. Announcements are expected "fairly soon" for several projects, said Ebony Meeks, an Energy Department spokeswoman. But she could not say whether USEC would be the subject of one of those announcements.

Overall, the project employs 5,700 directly or indirectly; jobs range from construction of the plant in Piketon to work on the enrichment-facility components and supplies in eight states, the company says. In Piketon, more than 600 are working, and a fully operating plant would employ about 400 for years to come.

The enrichment facility is separate from the planned nuclear-power plant that a consortium of companies recently announced. The nuclear power plant could take a decade to go online even if it gains all the necessary approvals.

USEC said this week that it expects the Energy Department to make a decision by early August on whether to grant a "conditional commitment" for the loan guarantee. But if the decision is no, or there is no decision, a demobilization plan for significantly slowing down the project will be put into effect that would "involve the partial or full halt of certain American Centrifuge project activities and plant construction," the company said.

"Even if a conditional commitment is provided by early August, demobilization may be initiated if the terms of such conditional commitment are not acceptable or if subsequent progress toward achieving actual funding later this year under the loan guarantee is not maintained," the company said.

http://www.dispatchpolitics.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/07/09/copy/usec08.ART_ART_07-09-09_A9_3QEE0AO.html?adsec=politics&sid=101

Ohio Uranium Plant at Risk Without Federal Loan

Your tax dollars at work! Again!


Updated 12:26 PM Sunday, June 21, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A company's plans to build a uranium enrichment plant in southern Ohio are in jeopardy without a $2 billion federal loan guarantee, The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday.

USEC Inc., based in Bethesda, Md., is developing the American Centrifuge project on the site of a former gaseous diffusion plant in Piketon, about 65 miles south of Columbus.

The company applied for the loan guarantee 10 months ago under a U.S. Department of Energy program launched by former President George W. Bush.

Without the loan guarantee, USEC won't be able to obtain private financing, company officials said.

The delay is adding to the project's overall cost, which is about $3.5 billion, USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle told The Dispatch. The company has spent about $1.4 billion so far, including the construction of a new facility.

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has said he intends to speed up the process of approving loan guarantees, but only one has been issued. In late March, Chu's department signed off on a $535 million loan guarantee for a solar-panel manufacturing plant to be built by California-based Solyndra.

USEC's project, announced five years ago, is supposed to open in 2011 and employ about 400. Enriched uranium from the plant would be used in generating electricity at nuclear power plants.

Work on the plant has slowed, and the prospect of mothballing it isn't far off, said Stuckle told the newspaper. She declined to specify when the project could be shut down.

"This is a serious time issue. We cannot get enough funding absent the loan guarantee," Stuckle said.

Rob Portman, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate and a former congressman from Cincinnati whose district included Piketon, recently wrote to President Barack Obama urging that the loan guarantee be granted quickly.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland also wrote to Obama in March, saying that "without timely approval of the loan guarantee, the many thousands of new jobs currently being created will be delayed or perhaps lost."

Obama was supportive when he campaigned in southern Ohio last year.

The Piketon site is where the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant enriched uranium during the Cold War.

Cleanup of the site is still going on, and just last week Gov. Ted Strickland and other politicians announced plans by Duke Energy and the French nuclear energy company Areva to build a $10 billion nuclear power plant there over the next 10 years.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/ohio-uranium-plant-at-risk-without-federal-loan-171934.html