The Department of Energy is planning to hold a workshop this summer in Paducah, Ky. with entities interested in operating the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant past 2013, WC Monitor has learned. A formal announcement is expected to be released in the coming weeks. In May, the Department of Energy finalized a deal with the Tennessee Valley Authority, Energy Northwest and current Paducah plant operator USEC to re-enrich 9,075 metric tons of depleted uranium tails from the DOE’s stockpile, which will keep the plant operating through 2013. The arrangement came after months of discussion between the parties and is intended to provide a financial lifeline to plant operator USEC and prevent a shutdown of the plant at the end of May, which USEC had said would occur without sufficient demand. Such a shutdown would have meant the plant would have been transferred to the Department of Energy’s cleanup program much earlier than currently planned, straining already tight budgets for the DOE Office of Environmental Management.
DOE PLANNING WORKSHOP FOR FIRMS INTERESTED IN OPERATING PADUCAH PLANT
Fuel reprocessing to play a role in advanced nuclear sector, panel says
WASHINGTON – The advanced nuclear technology sector likes the idea of used fuel reprocessing, but is still trying to figure out the economics of it, a House Science, Space and Technology Committee panel heard last week. Several nuclear industry specialists testified before the House Science’s Energy subcommittee about the direction of the domestic advanced reactor […]