Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) this week grilled Energy Secretary Rick Perry about the Department of Energy’s plans to award Centrus Corp. a sole-source contract for domestic uranium enrichment.
On Jan. 7, DOE issued a notice of intent to award Centrus a contract potentially worth $115 million over three years to deploy a cascade of 16 centrifuges to demonstrate the ability to produce high assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU), suitable for a range of military and civilian applications.
While Centrus has started contract talks with DOE about the proposed demonstration project, there is no assurance a deal will be reached and the project will go forward, the company said in its latest quarterly earnings report.
The report came out this week before Heinrich, in a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told Perry that the contract proposal is odd. The URENCO USA plant in Eunice, N.M., already provides over one-third of enriched uranium used by domestic nuclear power plants, Heinrich said.
“That company [URENCO] is not a United States-owned company and that is the real key here,” Perry replied. “We need a domestic supply of this high-assay uranium product” to fuel advanced reactors.
URENCO USA is part of the URENCO family of companies. The London area-based organization was founded in 1970 by the governments of Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is eyeing Centrus technology as a possible future source of low-enriched uranium needed to produce tritium for nuclear weapons.
“It has to do with the Department of Defense requirement to restore that market,” Perry said during the hearing. The type of reactors that could use this fuel “may have a clear DOD nexus,” he added.
When pressed for details, Perry said he did not think he should discuss specifics during a public hearing. Perry invited Heinrich to discuss the issue in a secure facility at DOE headquarters. Heinrich said he would plan to do so.
“This demonstration is intended to show that a U.S. technology option is available to the private sector as the market for HALEU emerges, making it critical to promoting U.S. leadership in this emerging market sector and to advancing vital strategic interests,” according DOE’s 2020 budget proposal.
Formerly known as USEC, Centrus emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on Sept. 30, 2014. The company was incorporated in 1998 as part of the privatization of the United States Enrichment Corp., which was part of DOE.
