Kenneth Fletcher
NS&D Monitor
4/18/2014
While a Department of Energy program supporting USEC’s American Centrifuge technology had been set to expire this week, some savings have allowed USEC and DOE to undertake a “no-cost” extension of the program until the end of the month. The extension will allow details to be worked out for current plans to transfer management of American Centrifuge to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. “The Department and USEC have established a no-cost extension to the RD&D cooperative agreement through the end of April,” a DOE spokesperson said in a written response. “At the same time, the Department continues to explore options for the best way to meet U.S. national security needs after the cooperative agreement ends. The Department currently plans to task the Oak Ridge Office and the Oak Ridge National Lab with taking actions needed to maintain the centrifuges and enrichment capability as the Department explores these options.”
The extension was possible due to “prudent management of existing program funds by USEC,” according to a company release. Due to financial challenges, USEC has said that it can not continue to support the project on its own after the end of the nearly two-year research, development and deployment cost-share program, and the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. About $9.6 million in appropriated funds for the project remain, but DOE has reached its stated funding limit for the project and the money hasn’t yet been sent to American Centrifuge. An additional $56.65 million of reprogramming authority is contingent on completion of a cost-benefit analysis that has not yet been submitted to Congress. That funding would likely come from the National Nuclear Security Administration, though DOE has not yet identified what program that would come from.
The R&D program successfully demonstrated the American Centrifuge technology on a commercial scale by building and running a cascade of 120 centrifuges, meeting all DOE milestones. But as a condition for support the project, the Department has the option to take over the intellectual property rights for the technology if USEC can’t commercialize it—and USEC has said that due to current market conditions it can’t finance the project. Instead, the Department will likely seek to develop a domestic enrichment capacity to serve only national security needs such as tritium production. “USEC continues to hold constructive discussions with ORNL, which will manage the RD&D program going forward,” according to a USEC statement. “These discussions include the scope of the continued RD&D program to support national security requirements in light of budget constraints and the objectives articulated by Secretary of Energy Moniz in recent Congressional testimony, as well as discussions on USEC’s role as a contractor to ORNL in carrying out the program.”
