NNSA EMPHASIZES USEC’S NATIONAL SECURITY ROLE

By ExchangeMonitor

With another deadline for USEC’s troubled American Centrifuge Project looming, National Nuclear Security Administration nonproliferation chief Anne Harrington emphasized the Obama Administration’s support for a research, development and demonstration program for the project in testimony before a Senate panel yesterday. The Administration requested $150 million for the RD&D effort in the NNSA’s Fiscal Year 2013 nonproliferation budget, but USEC continues to scramble to find funds to keep the project rolling. The company has until Friday to obtain additional funding before creditor JP Morgan significantly restricts the amount USEC can spend on the program. “We have to have what we call an unencumbered, U.S.-origin source of material,” Harrington told the Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee yesterday. “And that is absolutely critical from our perspective to sustain the long-term viability of our nuclear stockpile as well as our nuclear Navy. So that is why this particular issue is so important and why we have this particular piece of funding in our budget for next year.”

In addition to providing the only source of unrestricted low-enriched uranium that can be used to produce tritium for use in the nation’s weapons program, Harrington also touted the nonproliferation benefits of the facility, suggesting that the U.S. needs all portions of the fuel cycle to use to persuade other countries to not seek their own enrichment and reprocessing capabilities. “It makes it more difficult for us to persuade countries to go down that path if we can’t offer some of those services ourselves, and at this point we really don’t,” Harrington said. “If we are successful in this RD&D project, we could serve nonproliferation and national security in two senses.” Harrington said by the end of the RD&D program the Department is hoping to have “proof of principle and pilot operation” that would allow the project to be commercialized. “That is not necessarily something that is the Department’s responsibility; that would be something that we would look to the private sector to be very involved in,” Harrington said. “But we do think it’s worth another year of investment in a technology that we believe is promising and could have commercial potential to see if we can prove that principle.”

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