July 21, 2014

ConverDyn Fires Back Against B&W in Uranium Transfer Lawsuit

By ExchangeMonitor

ConverDyn has fired back against contentions that halting the Department of Energy’s uranium transfers would harm U.S. national security and nonproliferation goals, arguing that the uranium transfers don’t have to be linked to the downblending efforts of Babcock & Wilcox subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services. NFS is the nation’s lone source for downblending highly enriched uranium, producing fuel for use in commercial nuclear reactors as well as for use by the Navy, and B&W last week outlined its opposition to the preliminary injunction to stop DOE uranium transfers sought by ConverDyn in an amicus curiae brief. ConverDyn has opposed increased DOE uranium transfers, arguing that DOE is required by law to assess the impacts on the uranium market, which it has argued would be harmful to its business.

Like the Office of Environmental Management’s Portsmouth D&D project, uranium transfers help fund B&W’s downblending work, but in a court filing yesterday, ConverDyn said it is not necessarily targeting DOE’s downblending program. “DOE is free to use alternative sources of funding for downblending, such as supplemental appropriations or reprogramming of other funds, even if a preliminary injunction is granted,” ConverDyn said in the court filing. “The Court need not assess the wisdom of nuclear nonproliferation programs or the United States’ policy toward nonproliferation. Instead, the Court is faced with the more mundane task of evaluating whether DOE has complied with express statutory requirements before making uranium transfers.”

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