Uranium Enrichment & Fuel Cycle

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it intends to award BWX Technologies subsidiary Nuclear Fuel Services a sole-source contract to purify highly enriched uranium and convert it into metal for nuclear weapons programs. The NNSA will need Nuclear Fuel Services to step in around 2023, when the semiautononmous Department of Energy agency plans […]

Consolidated Nuclear Security has received the go-ahead to install a piece of hardware at the Y-12 National Security Complex that will one day help the National Nuclear Security Administration end uranium processing in the World War II-era Building 9212 and transfer the work to the planned Uranium Processing Facility. In a report published Friday, the […]

The Energy Department published its justification May 31 for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ […]

The Energy Department published its justification for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ American Centrifuge Operating LLC […]

The Energy Department Friday published its justification for contracting a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate high-assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) production without competitive bidding. The federal government wants to deploy a 16-machine cascade at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio to demonstrate production of 19.75% enriched uranium fuel by June 2022 using domestic technology. Centrus’ American […]

After 11 years with Westinghouse, José Emeterio Gutiérrez will resign as president and CEO effective July 31 and will be succeeded Aug. 19 by Patrick Fragman, group senior vice president at ABB Limited, an international technology company involved with electrification, industrial automation, and other fields. An executive committee of senior managers will run Westinghouse daily […]

Westinghouse Electric announced Thursday it will change CEOs this summer. After 11 years with Westinghouse, José Emeterio Gutiérrez will resign as president and CEO effective July 31 and will be succeeded Aug. 19 by Patrick Fragman, group senior vice president at ABB Limited, an international technology company involved with electrification, industrial automation, and other fields. […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has taken custody of some 700 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the United Kingdom, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said. The material, shipped to the U.S. from the U.K.’s Dounreay fast-reactor decommissioning site beginning in 2016, was at Oak Ridge awaiting downblending in “commercial […]

The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., has taken custody of some 700 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from the United Kingdom, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said last week. The material, shipped to the U.S. from the U.K.’s Dounreay nuclear decommissioning site beginning in 2016, was at Oak Ridge awaiting downblending […]

Centrus Energy Corp. expects to receive a Department of Energy contract to produce an unspecified quantity of energy-dense low-enriched uranium “in the near term,” President and CEO Daniel Poneman said Thursday. “[W]e continue to negotiate with the Department of Energy on the contract to build a high-assay-low-enriched uranium [HALEU] demonstration cascade, utilizing our improved AC-100M […]

A hole in a calibration valve caused the hydrogen fluoride leak that prompted the operations contractor of the Y-12 National Security Complex to evacuate the main U.S. uranium processing building in early April, according to a recent report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB). “Based on a visual inspection, a hole was identified […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on Tuesday again tried to put New Mexico in line for a piece of the high-assay low-enriched uranium market the Department of Energy is trying to spark with a promised sole-source contract award to Centrus Corp. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy in January announced it planned to award Bethedsa, Md.-based […]

Editor’s Note 05/14/2019, 9:50 a.m. Eastern: the story was corrected to read that the U.K. shipped highly-enriched uranium to an undisclosed U.S. location. The United Kingdom has finished shipping 700 kilograms of excess highly enriched uranium to the United States from the former fast-reactor research site at Dounreay, Scotland, the U.S. and U.K. said Friday. The […]

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) on Tuesday again tried to put New Mexico in line for a piece of the high-assay low-enriched uranium market the Department of Energy is trying to spark with a promised sole-source contract award to Centrus Corp. The DOE Office of Nuclear Energy in January announced it planned to award Bethedsa, Md.-based […]

Maryland-based Centrus Energy will hold its annual stockholders online meeting at 10 a.m. ET on June 6. “You will be able to participate in the meeting, vote, and submit questions during the meeting by visiting www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/LEU2019,” and entering a control number mailed to shareholders, Centrus President and CEO Daniel Poneman and Board Chairman Mikel Williams […]

Maryland-based Centrus Energy will hold its annual stockholders online meeting at 10 a.m. ET on June 6. “You will be able to participate in the meeting, vote, and submit questions during the meeting by visiting www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/LEU2019,” and entering a control number mailed to shareholders, Centrus President and CEO Daniel Poneman and Board Chairman Mikel Williams […]

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 […]

Centrus Energy on Thursday reported a decline in revenue for both the fourth quarter of 2018 and the year in whole. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel provider reported revenue of about $84 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, and $193 million for 2018, down respectively from $117 million and $218 million for the corresponding […]

Centrus Energy on Thursday reported a decline in revenue for both the fourth quarter of 2018 and the year in whole. The Bethesda, Md.-based nuclear fuel provider reported revenue of about $84 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, and $193 million for 2018, down respectively from $117 million and $218 million for the corresponding […]

The Department of Energy has yet to reply to an angry letter from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) demanding details about the agency’s plan to help Centrus Energy Corp. build a new uranium enrichment cascade in Ohio. A Senate aide said Friday that DOE had not respond to the Jan. 23 letter, despite Barrasso’s request for […]

As of early this week, the Department of Energy had yet to reply to an angry letter from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) demanding details about the agency’s plan to help Centrus Energy Corp. build a new uranium enrichment cascade in Ohio. A Senate aide said Monday that DOE had not respond to the Jan. 23 […]

Two Tennessee-based firms, RSI Entech and Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve), appear set to keep their technical support business for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) through the end of the year. Meanwhile, a source said Thursday the Energy Department appears to be moving ahead with plans for a consolidated technical and administrative support […]

Two Tennessee-based firms, RSI Entech and Professional Project Services (Pro2Serve), appear set to keep their technical support business for the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) through the end of the year. The Energy Department said in a Jan. 11 notice of intent it expects to negotiate an agreement to keep RSI on from […]

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) thinks the Department of Energy may not have the authority to fund a new uranium enrichment cascade under a $115 million sole-source contract announced with Centrus Energy earlier this month. “Congress did not authorize or fund this project in the 2019 annual budget appropriations process,” Barrasso wrote in a Wednesday letter […]

Four Rivers Nuclear Partnership, comprised of Jacobs, Fluor, and BWX Technologies, got off to a “satisfactory” start in its first year as cleanup contractor at the Energy Department’s Paducah Site in Kentucky, earning 60 percent of its potential fee, according to a recent scorecard. The DOE’s Portsmouth-Paducah Project Office (PPPO) this week rolled out fee […]

As of early January, an Energy Department contractor has converted more than 70,500 metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) at two former gaseous diffusion plant sites. The material is being converted into uranium oxide, a more stable chemical form for storage, reuse, or disposal. Conversion operations at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the […]

Centrus Energy, the former government-owned U.S. Enrichment Corp., got a lifeline this week from the Department of Energy to build a new 16-machine enrichment centrifuge cascade in Ohio, potentially strengthening the company’s ability to help the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) produce tritium for nuclear weapons in about 20 years. Under a contract awarded Monday […]

The U.S. Energy Department is seeking comments on options for disposal of material generated from conversion of depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio and the Paducah Site in Kentucky. The DOE Office of Environmental Management said in a Dec. 28 Federal Register notice it has issued a draft supplemental environmental impact statement on disposal […]

The Department of Energy said Monday it plans to hire a Centrus Energy subsidiary to demonstrate a new nuclear fuel product for use in federal research into advanced reactors. In a notice of intent on the FedBizOpps.gov website, DOE’s Nuclear Energy Oak Ridge, Tenn., Site Office said American Centrifuge Operating would be hired to develop […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Friday it helped send more than 1 kilogram of highly enriched uranium back to China from the Nigerian Research Reactor-1 at Ahmadu Bello University near Zaria, Nigeria. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency worked with the Chinese government and the U.N.-chartered International Atomic Energy Agency to repatriate the […]