The U.S. Department of Energy should be required to “show cause” why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not dismiss its license application for shipment of weapon-grade uranium to Europe, according to a company that opposes the request.
Failing that, Curium and other parties should be authorized to intervene in the NRC proceeding, according to a motion filed on Nov. 6.
The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Aug. 5 filed a license application with the federal nuclear regulator for export of nearly 4.8 kilograms of uranium-235 enriched to 93.4% to Belgium’s Institute for Radioelements (IRE). The material would be employed at facilities in several European nations for fabrication and irradiation of targets to produce the medical isotopes molybdenum-99 and iodine-131.
The application by Sept. 21 drew petitions to the NRC for intervention and adjudicatory hearings from Curium, a London-based nuclear medicine company that operates from St. Louis in the United States; NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, a medical isotope company based in Beloit, Wisc.; the nongovernmental Nuclear Threat Initiative; and Alan Kuperman, founding coordinator of the University of Texas Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project.
The petitions highlighted the potential proliferation dangers of exporting highly enriched uranium to foreign countries even as other companies have made the costly switch to using low-enriched uranium in their production processes. With NRC approval, the petitioners would argue their cases at an adjudicatory hearing.
The Energy Department missed the Oct. 21 deadline to respond to any of the petitions, Curium said in its motion last week.
Given the agency’s “intentional decision not to participate in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing process” to defend the license application, Curium said it “respectfully requests that the Commission issue an order for DOE to show cause as to why its Application should not be terminated, or in the alternative, admit the unopposed petitions to intervene in this proceeding.”
In a statement Friday, the NNSA said “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of the license application for the National Institute for Radioelements in Belgium (IRE) is proceeding according to the normal process. DOE/NNSA and the interagency cannot comment further at this time, given the nature of that process.”
