A pilot program to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium at the Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, will cost $2 million to $3 million more than expected because of the COVID-19 pandemic and vendor reliability, according to DOE’s fiscal year 2022 budget request.
“State COVID related work restrictions initially led to unanticipated costs,” the budget request reads. “In addition, suppliers have been unable to deliver equipment and materials causing alternative suppliers to be sought resulting in additional hours for contract activities, redesign, and additional nuclear criticality safety analyses. Additional activities included onsite health screenings and thorough industrial hygiene measures.”
Under its $115-million, 80-20 cost share deal with DOE, which had two years of firm funding and a one-year option, Centrus is supposed to build a 16-machine enrichment cascade at Portsmouth, on the same site as the decommissioned American Centrifuge Project. DOE definitized the award in November 2019, but work started in early June of that year under a letter contract.
The Bethesda, Md.-based company finished building all 16 AC100 machines in March, it said in its earnings report for 2020. The company planned to start operating the new cascade by March 1, 2022, provide a sample to DOE by March 15, 2022 and produce at least 200 kilograms of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to DOE by June 1, 2022. The 200-kilogram tranche would be delivered under a contract option.
“The Federal Government’s cumulative cost share contribution over this three-year project, will not exceed $115 million,” according to DOE’s 2022 budget request.
DOE wants the HALEU from the Centrus demo to fuel advanced reactor demonstrations, which themselves are aiming at testing technology that could be commercialized by the power generation industry and others.
Meanwhile, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is considering whether to use Centrus’ AC100 technology as the cornerstone of the next domestic enrichment facility capable of producing unencumbered uranium for nuclear weapons work. The NNSA needs a supply of uranium usable in the weapons program by the early 2040s. Centrus is competing against a smaller technology developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. NNSA planned to pick from among the two by January, but the agency had yet to announce a choice at deadline Monday.
There has been renewed curiosity in Congress this year about whether the NNSA might be able to procure unencumbered defense uranium from sources other than a domestic enricher.
