The nuclear energy industry and some lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to press for a new U.S. domestic uranium enrichment capability, though not necessarily for the same reasons.
At a May 3 public witness hearing before the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) asked Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, “Does NEI support the Department of Energy re-establishing a domestic uranium enrichment capacity for national security purposes in the near term, and why?”
“We do think that it’s important that the United States has the ability to enrich uranium,” Korsnick responded. Advocates for a domestic industrial enrichment capability say this is necessary for U.S. energy security, nonproliferation, and the development of tritium for the nuclear stockpile.
NEI, the nuclear power industry’s lobbying arm, last month also said in a letter to DOE that a new U.S. uranium fuel supply capacity is necessary over the long term, specifically to meet the needs of advanced nuclear reactors.
Uranium at different levels of enrichment is used for national security applications including weapon components, naval reactors, and commercial power plant fuel for the production of tritium. The United States has not had a domestic uranium enrichment capability since 2013, when it shuttered its Cold War-era gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, Ky.
Department of Energy contractor Centrus Energy has worked to develop an advanced capability through the American Centrifuge project in Piketon, Ohio – the only national initiative toward an advanced domestic enrichment capability with U.S.-origin technology.
In 2015, the Energy Department cut funding for the American Centrifuge technology demonstration, while continuing to pay for project research and development at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee – which is located in Fleischmann’s district.
After losing the federal funding for the Piketon site, the company said early last year it was demobilizing the demonstration cascade. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in December removed uranium enrichment from the list of activities permitted under Centrus’ license at Piketon.
“The Department of Energy, and members of both parties in Congress, have long recognized the critical importance of restoring a domestic uranium enrichment capability to meet long-term national security requirements,” Centrus spokesman Jeremy Derryberry said in an emailed statement. “While the timetable must be determined by the Administration, DOE has reported to Congress that a near-term deployment would save taxpayers billions of dollars compared to the plan to defer U.S. enrichment capability until 2038.”
“Centrus is continuing to advance our technology and stands ready to deploy it to support national security, while also restoring American leadership in advanced technology and creating thousands of quality jobs,” he said.
In October 2016, the Government Accountability Office warned of a declining U.S. inventory of unobligated low-enriched uranium – which is used in the production of tritium, the material that triggers the chain reaction in nuclear weapons – due to the end of Centrus’ enrichment operations. The Energy Department has estimated that its domestic unobligated low-enriched uranium inventory will last until the late 2030s.
Meanwhile, the United States is estimated to have less than 600 metric tons of highly enriched uranium in its fissile material stockpile.
The domestic enrichment issue might be bubbling up again due to concerns regarding U.S. tritium production for the nuclear stockpile, said Miles Pomper, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. He disagreed, however, that this issue necessitates a domestic enrichment capacity.
“We have downblended HEU already that could be used for this in [the] stockpile and we could downblend more from weapons,” Pomper said. “We also can convert naval vessels from HEU to LEU fuel so that less needs to be set aside for them (this is the primary use of existing stockpile). DOE has begun investigating this possibility.”
Arguments in favor of a domestic enrichment capacity, then, may be “a plea for corporate welfare on the part of one company- Centrus Energy,” according to Pomper.
Jack Spencer, vice president for The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Economic Freedom, said by email that the U.S. gaseous diffusion plants where uranium was enriched were “obsolete and expensive” and therefore “needed to be shut down.” Spencer noted that the United States has a commercial enrichment capability – a plant in New Mexico built by the European energy consortium URENCO.
However, for national security applications, the uranium much be enriched here using U.S. technology and domestic-origin uranium. “A policy decision [on] the development of a domestic supply of national security uranium could be worth investigating,” Spencer said. “Starting the process sooner could save taxpayer money and reduce the risk of developing supply shortages. I have to stress, this does not mean that I would advocate a domestic enrichment program at this time. But I do think that it’s a question worth looking at.”
Fleischmann’s office did not reply to a request for comment.
