Kenneth Fletcher
RW Monitor
2/21/2014
The Department of Energy is considering “all options” in its review of the national security requirements for a domestic enrichment capacity, Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman said last week at the Sixth Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit. A cost-share program supporting USEC’s American Centrifuge project is currently set to end in April, and DOE is undertaking a Congressionally-mandated review of its options moving forward. Poneman has cited the importance of a domestic enrichment capacity for needs such as tritium production and naval reactor fuel. “As we have watched the ACP program these many years we have been very focused on that option as one in which a lot of investment and a lot of hard work has gone into to create that sort of unencumbered material. Anybody obviously reading the newspapers knows that the company has challenging circumstances, so we are doing what you’d expect us to be doing, which is to be looking at all options,” Poneman said.
USEC has struggled financially in recent months, and late last year announced that it intends to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and will need additional government financing to stay afloat. While that has raised questions about DOE’s continued support of the company through an ongoing research, development and deployment program, Congress provided $62 million for the program in the Fiscal Year 2014 spending bill passed last month. While the RD&D program is currently set to end on April 15, those funds could potentially keep it running until mid-May, RW Monitor has learned.
Additional Funding Contingent on Analysis
The omnibus bill also provides an additional $56.65 million contingent on a DOE cost-benefit analysis of potential domestic enrichment technologies for national security needs—money that could potentially go to something other than the RD&D project. “The Secretary requested that we provide the three months and give them latitude and time to do a review of what the real requirements are for tritium, what we need and when we need it, and what the best way is to secure that capability going forward,” Taunja Berquam, minority staff on the House Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee, said at last week’s meeting. “I think that is our expectation, that they do a rigorous analysis of what they actually need.”
Poneman: ‘We … Have to do the Responsible Thing’
Another potential option for DOE would be a “National Security Train” program proposed by USEC that would only provide enough enriched uranium for security needs, which USEC has priced at $750 million. Alternatively, DOE could put the project on hold and take ownership of the centrifuge technology under an agreement made with USEC under the RD&D program. Poneman last week said that all options remain on the table for DOE. “We are looking obviously at the investment that we’ve made and the run time in the RD&D program, there’s a lot of data and value that’s been invested in that, so that’s obviously an option,” he said. “But we are going to have to do the responsible thing to do, look at all the available options to make sure that we can continue to fulfill the requirements of our deterrent and the requirements that we have access to that kind of material.”
