WC Monitor
9/11/2015
IN INDUSTRY
Centrus Energy has notified about 380 American Centrifuge workers that layoffs could be coming in a couple months. The company, which heads the uranium enrichment project, emphasized that the notices don’t necessarily mean layoffs are sure to happen but are necessary to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.
The majority of the worker notices went to employees in Ohio, where the project is based, but about 145 went to Oak Ridge workers, where much of the research and development activities are taking place.
Centrus is developing the plans to for a centrifuge-based uranium-enrichment plant to produce fuel for nuclear reactors. Plans to deploy such a plant, however, have been put on hold for now due to poor market conditions.
The company was formerly known as USEC Inc., but changed its name after coming out of bankruptcy proceedings about a year ago.
The American Centrifuge effort is dependent on funding from the Department of Energy. Centrus has been negotiating with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which DOE appointed to oversee the work and help preserve the classified technology for strategic reasons. The United States currently does not have a domestic source for uranium enrichment.
In a statement released Thursday, Centrus said it is in “active discussions” about funding for continued operations. “While the current contract is set to expire on Sept. 30, we are hopeful that the laboratory will make funds available to continue advancing this technology,” the statement said.
ORNL spokesman David Keim declined to comment Thursday. The National Nuclear Security Administration did not immediately respond to a request for information.
IN WASHINGTON
The U.S. Nuclear Infrastructure Council has scheduled its first-ever EM Roundtable for Thursday, Sept. 17, providing congressional, private sector, and Department of Energy perspectives on DOE’s environmental management programs. The session will address "DOE’s EM program: The Next Five Years," and will feature Mark Whitney, principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management, along with staff from the Senate Appropriations and Energy and Natural Resources committees and Paul Grimm, president of BG4 LLC and chairman of the USNIC EM Task Force. The discussion will be led by Llewellyn King, founder of The Energy Daily and host of "White House Chronicle."
The event will begin at 8:30 a.m. at 562 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Constitution Avenue and First Street NE. Registration information is available on the www.usnic.org website or via Caleb Ward ([email protected]), and RSVPs are requested by Sept. 15.
