GLOBAL LASER ENRICHMENT TO SUBMIT APPLICATION FOR PADUCAH PLANT BY SEPTEMBER

In a another step in a proposal to construct an enrichment plant at the Paducah site, Global Laser Enrichment intends to submit a license application by September to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the company told the NRC last week. “GLE expects to submit the license application for the [Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility] by September 2014 and requests NRC review and approval by November 2016 to support the project schedule,” GLE President Chris Monetta wrote in a Jan. 20 letter of intent to the NRC posted publicly yesterday.

 

DOE announced late last year that  it would enter into negotiations with GLE for the sale of a portion of its depleted uranium tails stockpile in response to a request for offers DOE released last year for the material at the Paducah and Portsmouth sites. GLE, a subsidiary of GE-Hitachi, is proposing building a plant on the Paducah site using a laser technology developed by the Australian firm SILEX to enrich the tails up to natural uranium levels. That is a separate effort from the  the SILEX plant GLE has already proposed in North Carolina for low enriched uranium, which has already been licensed by the NRC.