The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has withdrawn a license application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on behalf of the Belgian Nuclear Research Center (SCK-CEN) for the export of 134.2 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, contained in 144 kilograms of uranium, according to correspondence shared with NS&D Monitor between the NRC and the NNSA.
A Feb. 29 letter from the NNSA to the NRC said the SCK-CEN, which researches radioactivity and its peaceful applications, notified the NNSA of changes in its business plans that “significantly change the information” in the U.S. agency’s December 2014 export license application. The NNSA then requested that the application be withdrawn. In a March 14 response, the NRC said it was returning the application but that it would not refund the $18,200 licensing fee because it had already started processing the request.
The letter noted the uranium was to be sent to the AREVA CERCA facility in southeastern France for fuel fabrication, after which it would be sent to Belgium for use in the Belgian Reactor 2 fuel reload at SCK-CEN. The reactor is used for research into the effects of ionizing radiation on reactor components and the production of medical and industrial radioisotopes, according to SCK-CEN.
Access to the SCK-CEN is currently “strictly limited” and under “increased vigilance” due to this week’s terrorist attacks at the Brussels airport and metro, according to an announcement from the institution. Media reports revealed last month that a man with suspected links to last November’s attacks in Paris was in possession of surveillance footage of a Belgian SCK-CEN nuclear researcher, although the institution’s withdrawal of its license application does not appear to be tied to these concerns.
The NNSA anticipates that Belgium “will soon be submitting a new request to match their revised needs,” agency spokeswoman Shelley Laver said by email. “This change is not related in any way to the security situation in Belgium.” The SCK-CEN did not respond to a question regarding the reason for withdrawal of the application.
Alan Kuperman, an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project (NPPP), last March filed a petition to the NRC opposing the Belgian export “on grounds that it represented at least a five-year supply of bomb-grade fuel” for the Belgian reactor, according to an NPPP announcement. Kuperman called the amount of uranium – which he said would be enriched to 93 percent – “excessive, especially in light of the recent U.S. nonproliferation practice of limiting such exports to a single year’s supply.”
Kuperman claimed in the announcement that “Belgian officials reportedly withdrew their export request because they have decided to fabricate fuel in the United States rather than in Europe” and “are expected to submit a new request to export fabricated fuel from the United States, and only one year’s worth at a time.”
