A multinational medical isotope company jumped the gun in demanding that the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) “show cause” against termination of its application for a federal license to export weapon-grade uranium to Europe, according to a lawyer for the agency.
In any case, the argument laid out by Curium has no merit, NNSA counsel Zachary Stern wrote in a Nov. 15 motion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapon branch in August applied for an NRC license to export 4.8 kilograms of highly enriched uranium for use by Belgium-based Institute for Radioelements (IRE) in production of medical isotopes.
London-based Curium filed for adjudicatory hearings in the application, along with U.S. isotope producer NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes, the nongovernmental Nuclear Threat Initiative, and a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the University of Texas at Austin. They broadly argued that export of HEU poses a nuclear proliferation threat and undercuts companies that have made the expensive conversion to using proliferation-resistant low-enriched uranium for isotope manufacturing.
The NRC has not yet ruled on the petitions. Curium, meanwhile, on Nov. 6 filed another motion urging the commission demand that the NNSA make the case why its application should not be eliminated. The company based its position on the fact that the federal agency did not file any responses with the NRC to the hearing and intervention requests.
Stern wrote that Curium does not yet have standing to make such a demand because at this point it remains a petitioner rather than an actual party to the licensing proceeding.
In addition, federal law does not require the NNSA to respond in writing to intervention petitions, according to Stern.
“In this export license proceeding, DOE/NNSA continues to participate in these proceedings, and is awaiting further orders of the Commission as to how the Commission proposes to proceed with its review of DOE/NNSA’s license application,” the lawyer wrote.
