The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is still reviewing Centrus Energy Corp.’s plans to ship radioactive waste from the canceled American Centrifuge plant in Piketon, Ohio, to the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site, throwing a wrench into the company’s plan to start moving waste by the end of March.
Centrus filed its waste transportation plan with the NRC in December and has modified the plan twice since, in January and February, according to a Feb. 24 regulatory filing made public Tuesday by the regulator.
In the latest filing, Centrus said it would ship waste from the now-shuttered American Centrifuge lead cascade facility in Piketon “[u]pon NRC approval of the Transportation Security Plan and permanent burial site,” and that shipments could begin by March.
However, an NRC spokesperson on Tuesday said “we have not yet completed our review.”
A Centrus spokesperson did not reply to requests for comment Tuesday. The company has declined to describe the waste generated by the project because at least some of the material is classified or export-controlled.
In its Feb. 24 regulatory filing, Centrus said the waste it plans to ship qualifies as “both Low Specific Activity material and Surface Contaminated Objects,” and that the company “believes that the planned shipments meet all applicable NRC and DOT [Department of Transportation] regulatory requirements.”
The American Centrifuge plant at Piketon was an industrial-scale demonstration for next-generation uranium enrichment technology. The Energy Department shut the demo down in 2015; Centrus, the former United States Enrichment Corp., then began decontamination and decommissioning last year. A smaller-scale American Centrifuge technology demonstration continues under contract to UC Battelle, operator of DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
Centrus is slated to host its 2016 earnings call with investors tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. The call will be webcast.
After the close of business Tuesday, the company reported it had lost $67.0 million, or $7.36 per share, in 2016, compared with a net loss of $187.4 million, or $20.82 per share, in 2015. The 2015 results included a $137.2 million charge related to the company’s bankruptcy reorganization in 2014.
In its latest earnings press release, Centrus estimated it will cost about $40 million to complete American Centrifuge decontamination and decommissioning. It will cost another $40 million or so on top of that to maintain the Piketon building that once housed the demo, and to keep the company’s NRC license to enrich uranium there live through 2019: the date Centrus’ lease with DOE on the Ohio facility expires.
