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L.E.S. (New Mexico)
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LES production expansion:
LES is planning to expand the annual capacity of its National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico from 3 million SWU to 5.9 million SWU, the company announced November 21.
With the plant's expanded capacity, it will be able to provide the equivalent of about 50% of US enrichment demand, LES, a Urenco subsidiary, said in a press statement.
LES' total investment in the plant is now expected to be more than $3 billion, the company said. The previous estimate was $1.5 billion, in 2006 dollars.
The expansion decision means that construction will take about an extra year to complete, wrapping up around the end of 2014, LES Vice President for Government Affairs Clint Williamson said in a November 21 interview.
NRC in June 2006 approved LES' request to build and operate the plant, which is currently under construction.
For the expansion, LES plans to use the new-design TC-21 centrifuge, rather than the TC-12 that is to be used in the initially constructed part of the facility, Williamson said. Industry sources had indicated three years ago that LES was considering that approach (NF, 19 Dec. '05, 1).
From the beginning of the project, LES had said it might enlarge the facility beyond the originally planned size. But officials had indicated that the decision would come later than it did. Two years ago, a Urenco official said the decision would not be made until the company had decided how to dispose of its depleted-uranium tails (NF, 4 Dec. '06, 14) — a step that has not yet been taken.
The company moved up its timetable for the expansion decision because its customers said they needed the additional enrichment, Williamson said. LES concluded that "if we waited too much longer, we would lose the opportunities" for those enrichment contracts, he said.
In the press statement, LES President and CEO Reinhard Hinterreither said LES began examining the business case for expansion several months ago. He said the case depends on several factors: commitments from utility customers, availability of investment capital, long-term stability of the US enrichment market and community support. It also "rests on the approval of state and federal regulatory agencies and the Urenco board," he said.
The Urenco board has not approved the expansion but "has given the go-ahead to start makings plans" for it and to go about business on that basis, Williamson said.
The planned expansion would require NRC approval.
An NRC staffer said LES would have to prepare a new environmental review, because the environmental impact statement prepared in conjunction with the 2006 license covered only the originally planned capacity.
Another key area is financial assurance, which deals with funds that the company has to put aside to cover decommissioning costs, the staffer said. The amount of money LES puts aside would have to increase, because the original assurance was tied to the depleted-uranium output of a 3 million SWU plant, he said.
Williamson said one change LES was planning to make could ease the new NRC review. Some of the additional buildings could be built using metal, rather than heavy concrete and rebar, he said.
He declined to estimate when LES would submit its application for the needed license amendment. LES's expansion and licensing teams are working together to determine what should be included in the application, he said.
Ron Witzel, a principal with the consulting firm Longenecker & Associates, said the expansion news was "tremendously positive" for US energy security. Right now, the US is "seriously over-reliant" on Russian enrichment and by 2013 needs to replace the 5.5 million SWU that comes into the US each year under the US-Russian high-enriched uranium agreement, he said. Under that agreement, which expires in 2013, Russia is blending down 500 metric tons of HEU to low-enriched uranium and selling the resulting LEU in the US, through USEC.
Under a February 1 revision to the Russian Suspension Agreement and legislation that the US Congress subsequently enacted, 20% to 25% of expected US reactor requirements — not including initial cores for new reactors — for the period 2014-2020 can be filled by so-called commercial SWU from Russia. But Witzel said there were "potential political issues" in signing long-term contracts with Russia's Techsnabexport, in light of the downturn in US-Russian relations and Russia's recent history of manipulating gas supplies to foreign customers for political leverage.
The prospect of the availability of relatively low-priced Russian LEU in a few years might have played a role in LES' endorsement of the expansion decision now, he said. More broadly, he said, LES probably looked at what its available market share would be under the original schedule and decided to accelerate that timetable.
USEC is currently building a new enrichment plant in Ohio; Areva and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are expected to submit applications to NRC in the coming months for plants in Idaho and North Carolina, respectively.
The LES announcement puts pressure on USEC as it seeks to secure contracts for the output of its American Centrifuge Plant, Witzel said. The anticipated DOE loan guarantee and loan through the Federal Financing Bank would allow construction of the ACP to continue on schedule, further reducing the risks connected with reliance on Russian supplies, Witzel added.
The LES expansion also "raises some questions" for GEH, he said. In an October 21 presentation to an industry meeting in Denver, he said there are some technical uncertainties about GEH's Global Laser Enrichment process — for example, its ability to maintain the needed laser frequencies, as well as pressure and temperature of gas flows.
Another analyst, Laurence Alexander of Jefferies & Co., said the early expansion decision gives utilities an additional "talking point" in their negotiations with other enrichers, and helps LES "put a stake in the ground" and lock in customers. But the announcement is unlikely to have a significant impact on LES' competitors, he said.
The decision clarifies the capacity that will be available at a particular time, but the expansion was generally expected, he said. Alexander said "it's unlikely customers were basing decisions on a specific date" — 2014 versus 2015 or 2016 — that the capacity would become available.
Witzel and Alexander both said a key question is the efficiency of the TC-21 centrifuges. In a presentation at an industry meeting in Budapest in April 2007, Witzel estimated that the TC-21 has an output of approximately 80 SWU a year, while the TC-12 can produce about 42 SWU/year.
Bringing more TC-21s online more quickly will increase the production rate and economies of scale, resulting in lower costs, he said.
Earlier this year, sources said Enrichment Technology Co. was scrambling to produce the centrifuges needed for Urenco's planned expansion but was staying on its schedule (NF, 11 Feb., 3). In April, Urenco said ETC's planned worldwide expansion between 2005 and 2012 would result in a total capacity increase that was the equivalent of 25-30 reactor reloads a year.
Witzel said LES would not have announced the New Mexico expansion unless it was confident that ETC could meet the accelerated demand.
ETC is a Urenco-Areva joint venture that owns the centrifuge technology Urenco originally developed.
Uranium enrichment facility moves closer to reality
Ruth Campbell
Midland Reporter-Telegram
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 3:29 AM CDT
-The $1.5 billion Lea County, N.M., facility, located near Andrews' Waste Control Specialists, should start producing in late 2009.
By Ruth Campbell
Staff Writer
Since its groundbreaking in August 2006, Louisiana Energy Services' uranium enrichment facility near Eunice, N.M., has sprung out of the earth and expectations are the $1.5 billion facility will come on line by late 2009.
Dana Starr, communications specialist for the National Enrichment Facility, as it is called, gave a presentation to Midland Rotary Club members Thursday at Midland Center. The plant will produce enriched uranium, which is needed to make fuel pellets that will be sent off to make electricity.
Pellets are shipped in U.S. Department of Transportation approved containers and have GPS tracking systems.
"We have already sold our first 10 years of production of our plant," Starr said.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued LES a license to build and operate the facility June 23, 2006. It is the first one to be licensed in America the last 30 years, she said, noting that progress is being followed closely by the nuclear industry.
The National Enrichment Facility is the first of its kind in the United States, but will be the fourth in the world. The Eunice plant was modeled after one in the Netherlands.
Enrichment services will be available in late 2009, but construction will continue through 2013.
It is owned by Urenco, a consortium of the British, Dutch and German governments.
Currently, the plant has 197 employees working in design, engineering, licensing, operations, maintenance and construction.
"We have successfully attracted 'nuclear' qualified staff across the organization," Starr said. The company said it would hire as many local people as possible, but that has been difficult.
She said National Enrichment Facility expects to be fully staffed by the end of June with 271 employees. There are currently 1,100 construction workers on site, including craft, management and construction workers.
That will decrease to 400. In addition, there are 235 contractors supporting development of programs, procedures and construction including the security force.
NEF has an annual payroll of $14 million and its subsidiary, ET U.S., or Enrichment Technology U.S., has a payroll of $4.5 million. With 65 employees locally, ET U.S. assembles centrifuges used in the plant.
Salaries for major contractors and subcontractors are $13.3 million a month, Starr said.
Overall, LES has paid $7.7 million in New Mexico state taxes from January through April of this year and made $300,000 in charitable donations to organizations in New Mexico and Texas.
The facility came about through the efforts of longtime U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, who "fought tooth and nail" to bring it to Eunice. Several factors also made the site attractive to LES including the geology with its red-bed clay, community support and tax abatements.
The plant is licensed for 30 years and waste will be stored on site. The company has a memorandum of understanding with Areva, a fuel cycle company that provides services to various U.S. utilities, to remove the uranium hexafluoride -- the active ingredient in the waste -- so the uranium can be put back in the ground, Starr said.
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AREVA
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Areva NRC licensing:
AREVA is on schedule to submit its license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission later this month, meeting a major milestone in its efforts to date. The company plans to move swiftly into the facility design phase in parallel with NRC review of the license application, and expects to break ground for the plant in early 2011. The AES licensing and design team will operate from offices in Idaho Falls, Bethesda, Md., and Marlborough, Mass.
Areva applies for federal loan guarantee for Eagle Rock facility
Posted: Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Global energy giant Areva submitted the second and final part of its loan guarantee application to the Department of Energy Dec. 2, asking for the federal government to guarantee $2 billion in loans to finance its proposed Eagle Rock uranium enrichment facility near Idaho Falls.
“We consider this a critical step in the project, and we believe we’ve submitted a very strong application,” said Areva spokesman Jarret Adams, adding that the loan guarantee “more important in this (economic) environment than it would be under normal circumstances.”
The loan guarantee program is designed to encourage investment in new nuclear energy projects, including reactors and projects on the “front-end” of the nuclear fuel cycle like enrichment and conversion facilities.
Part one of the application was submitted in September and included an overview of the Eagle Rock project, financing strategies and plans for meeting schedule milestones. Part two covered facility engineering; construction, operating and business plans; and an assessment of the company’s credit-worthiness.
In the latest round DOE offered $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for reactors but received applications from 17 companies totaling $122 billion. The agency provided a total of $2 billion for front-end facilities, and received two applications for $2 billion each – one from Areva and one from fellow nuclear power company USEC.
“It could mean that they split the money, or that it could be allocated just to one or neither,” Adams said. Congress may even decide to increase the amount, he added.
Adams said submission of the loan guarantee application clears the way for Areva to apply for licensing from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which the company plans to do before the end of this month. Areva said it hopes the commission will complete its licensing review within two-and-a-half years of the filing.
Ground could be broken on the $2 billion Eagle Rock facility as early as 2011, with operations commencing in 2014. Areva plans to employ 250 full-time workers at the operational site and 1,000 during construction.
“Things are moving along according to schedule on our end,” Adams said. “We’re moving forward with the licensing application… that’s a huge step in the project.”
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ROSATOM (Russian Federation)
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RIA Novosti
More Russian nuclear technology in China
27/05/2008 15:57
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna) - Among seven agreements signed in Beijing by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the most impressive and sensitive is no doubt the nuclear agreement.
According to Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency, or Rosatom, "the total worth of nuclear contracts signed in Beijing is more than $1.5 billion."
In matters nuclear, China is Russia's traditional strategic partner. Cooperation develops along many lines. Last fall, Russian specialists completed building two VVER-1000 reactors at the Tianwan nuclear power plant and linked them to the Chinese national grid. Today's discussions concern a second stage - the construction of units No. 3 and No. 4. Remarkably, Russia is offering its best reactors - the safest in the world and economical at reasonable price.
Under the new Beijing arrangements, Russia is to provide uranium enrichment services and help China build the fourth stage of its gas centrifuge plant (three are already in operation). With the additional capacities, the Chinese will be able to increase their output of enriched uranium required for making nuclear reactor fuel rods. This will cut fuel prices and make the country less dependent on outside enrichment services. China is currently experiencing critical power shortages, which have made it embark on an intensive nuclear construction program: in the next two decades it plans to build 20 nuclear plants.
But speaking of Russia's interests, won't its competitive ability be hurt by sharing a high-tech nuclear product with its neighbors? The technology behind gas centrifuges that enrich uranium was classified until recently, but some of the models no longer carry a security rating and are now freely exported. Under the new contract, China will, as before, receive sixth-generation gas centrifuges (without a technology transfer). Russia itself is using the latest eighth-generation centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plants and is working on more advanced models.
Uranium-enriching gas centrifuges are produced by the Kovrov mechanical plant in the Vladimir Region. Few countries have been able to create such a high-tech product. For the moment, overseas companies are using more power-consuming gas diffusion techniques for uranium enrichment.
U.S. engineers have been working on the American Centrifuge project for several years, but still have nothing to write home about: its launch keeps getting postponed. Nor did the French giant AREVA manage to master the centrifuge technology. In the meantime, the Russian Centrifuge project is making strong headway, continuing to win new segments of the world market, particularly in China.
Another reason why Russia will benefit from the agreement is that it has concluded a long-term contract to supply 6 million SWUs, or separation work units, of low-enriched uranium to China, which makes it possible to estimate the cost of obtaining one kilogram of low-enriched uranium. This is an impressive figure, considering that the world's total uranium enrichment capacities amount to 36 million SWUs.
According to Kiriyenko, "6 million SWUs of low-enriched uranium in the next ten years is a strong boost to the Russian presence on the Chinese market." Another benefit is more orders for Russia's centrifuge building industry (for now its capacities are running ahead of the country's requirements).
In addition to the gas centrifuge program, Russia is also going to implement another key nuclear project: a high-capacity fast-breeder reactor. It is now a matter of immediate concern, and talks on it are already under way between experts.
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G.E. - HITACHI (Laser Technology)
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July 21, 2008
GEH makes case for 24-month review of application for enrichment plant
GE-Hitachi is asking the NRC to set a 24-month review schedule for the company's forthcoming application to build and operate a uranium enrichment plant, a timetable six months shorter than the one the agency used for the application filed by Urenco subsidiary LES.
GEH has said it expects to submit the license application near the end of the year. The NRC staff is considering the GLE proposal but does not yet have a response, an agency spokesman said July 17.
GEH subsidiary Global Laser Enrichment said the license review process could be accelerated in part because of lessons learned from the experiences of LES and USEC. USEC received NRC approval for its enrichment plant after slightly less than 32 months. NRC issued LES' license in June 2006; USEC's license was granted in April 2007.
The USEC and LES plants use gas centrifuge technology, while GLE uses a type of laser enrichment based on technology formerly known as Silex, which separates isotopes by laser excitation.
GLE also said it could help speed up the review process by making its submittals easier for NRC to match up with the guidance from the relevant Nureg reports. The company laid out its case in a May 9 letter and "white paper."
Since it would use laser enrichment technology, the GLE commercial facility would be a first of its kind. But in a July 9 interview, Albert Kennedy, the GLE licensing manager for the project, said NRC had addressed the key first-of-a-kind issues in reviewing the license application for the GLE test loop, which received NRC license approval in May and is being built on the same Wilmington, North Carolina site as the planned commercial uranium enrichment facility.
An NRC official said two years ago that the agency did not expect to find "a major technical stumbling block" in the laser-enrichment application (INRC, 29 May '06, 9). But last month, NRC staffers said the agency already had had to bring in extra personnel for its oversight of the enrichment facilities (NuclearFuel, 30 June, 11), suggesting that the agency could face staff shortages in that area for at least part of the period during which the GLE application would be under review.
In its white paper, GLE argued that a faster licensing review is needed because of the "clear risk of supply shortfall [in uranium enrichment capacity] after 2013." That date marks the end of an agreement under which Russia is blending down high-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium for use in US reactors.
According to projections by their respective owners, the LES and USEC plants will be well into production by that time, and a proposed Areva gas centrifuge plant is projected to start producing enriched uranium by early 2014. Areva has said it plans to submit the application for its plant by the end of first-quarter 2009 (INRC, 12 May, 3). In a presentation to NRC last year, Areva said the combined output of three plants would not meet the expected US reactor requirements (NuclearFuel, 2 July, 1).
GLE argued that many of the steps of the LES and USEC proceedings can be copied, and, in some aspects, improved.
GLE noted that in the LES and USEC cases, the commission issued a 30-month schedule for the review. NRC should impose a similar "case-specific milestone schedule" in its hearing order for the GLE proceeding, the company said.
One step the commission could take, GLE said, is to specify in an order that the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board formed to oversee the proceeding can allow hearings on environmental and safety issues raised by challengers (or in contentions) before the NRC staff issues its final safety evaluation report and environmental impact statement.
Another GLE suggestion was for the commission to specify a timeframe for completion of the mandatory hearing process required by law, even if the proceeding is uncontested. Because the USEC and LES hearing orders "did not contain scheduling and procedural guidance" on that point, there were "potentially avoidable delays on the order of several months," GLE said.
Last month, NRC Chairman Dale Klein sent Congress a proposed draft bill that would eliminate the requirement for hearings in uncontested proceedings on enrichment plants and other NRC-licensed facilities (NF, 30 June, 12). The idea has been pushed by former NRC Commissioner James Curtiss and was among recommendations for improving reviews of license applications for a reactor combined construction permit-operating license, in a report issued last year by an NRC task force headed by then-Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield (INRC, 9 July '07, 1). But GLE's proposal for a 24-month schedule assumes that the current arrangements for mandatory hearings will remain in place.
The 24-month timetable, though "ambitious," is warranted by the "important national policy and commercial considerations" at stake, GLE said. GLE acknowledged that some of the factors in determining whether the schedule would be met are within the company's control.
Some of those, GLE said, relate to NRC's requests for additional information, or RAIs. The company can speed up the process by providing timely and complete answers to the RAIs, and by submitting an application that is technically sound enough to avoid the need for many RAIs, the letter said.
GLE could benefit from LES' and USEC's experience by examining the RAIs that were sent to those companies and then trying to address such questions in the initial application, Kennedy said in a the interview.
Another potential factor in GLE's favor, Kennedy said, is that NRC's project manager is Timothy Johnson, who has experience in successfully leading a 30-month review. Johnson was the project manager for the LES application.
GLE also plans to use certain "tools" in presenting its information to NRC, Kennedy said. As part of its submittal of the environmental report, GLE plans to include a matrix showing what parts of the document address the issues raised in particular sections of the relevant Nureg report. The company intends to provide a similar type of "crosswalk" for the license application and security plan, he said.
The process also should be simplified by the fact that GLE already is licensed to operate on the Wilmington site, Kennedy said. GLE can integrate the commercial enrichment facility into programs already in place at the site by, for example, building on existing fire protection programs and incorporating previously compiled environmental information, Kennedy said.
A second GLE white paper submitted with the May 9 letter asked the commission to use the hearing order to "clarify" that GLE can pursue site preparation and pre-construction activities "consistent with" those permitted under NRC's limited work authorization rule for new reactors. That rule spells out the activities allowed prior to the issuance of a license permitting construction, at the risk of the applicant.
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