USEC BOARD OF DIRECTORS TO MEET TODAY AMID QUESTIONS OVER ACP’S FUTURE

As the company faces uncertainty regarding the future of the American Centrifuge Plant, USEC’s Board of Directors is meeting today and could make key decisions on the company’s financial future. USEC said last month it may need to demobilize American Centrifuge in 2014 if it does not receive additional government support, and is facing a serious shortage of cash. As a current Department of Energy program supporting the project under a cooperative agreement comes to a close in January, lawmakers have questioned DOE’s plans for the future. DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz has “assembled a team that is currently identifying and assessing the full spectrum of options beyond the cooperative agreement,” Moniz wrote in a response last week to Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, adding, “I will ultimately be responsible for recommending how to proceed.”

Meanwhile, members of Ohio’s Congressional delegation are again urging Moniz to continue support for American Centrifuge given national security concerns—there is currently no U.S. domestic enrichment technology capacity, which according to government policy is needed for tritium production and naval reactor fuel. With DOE’s current Research, Development and Demonstration program coming to an end on Jan. 15, “we need your agency to move forward and provide a pathway for the successful deployment of U.S. advanced centrifuge technology that can meet our national security requirements and our nation’s important nuclear nonproliferation agenda,” states a Dec. 3 letter from Ohio Sens. Sherrod Brown (D) and Rob Portman (R) and 14 Ohio representatives.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies also weighed in on the topic this week, releasing a report stating that the U.S. government should establish its own enrichment capability for defense needs to ensure that a lack of U.S.-origin low-enriched uranium does not become a concern. The report outlined a number of policy recommendations to promote domestic enrichment, including; “The United States should have an ongoing enrichment capacity for defense needs. This could be provided by either restarting the Paducah enrichment facility at the minimum production level needed for defense purposes, or building a similar-size facility using the more advanced domestic centrifuge enrichment technology.”