The potential shutdown of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant appears to be growing closer, with no signs yet of a necessary contract extension between plant operator USEC and the Tennessee Valley Authority. USEC has said it will move to shut down the Paducah plant in May, which would return it back to the Department of Energy, if it does not renegotiate a favorable power purchase agreement with the utility. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month, though, the TVA said that there is no sign yet of such an agreement being reached. “Although TVA and the customer have been negotiating a renewal of the contract to extend operations of its plant past that date, the customer has yet to commit to an extension,” the Feb. 3 filing states.
USEC, for its part, says it is continuing its negotiations on the power purchase agreement, but officials have so far declined to give a date by which the company must decide whether to continue operations. “Nothing really has changed from that standpoint, other than we are obviously approaching the time we will need to be making some decisions, but we are not quite there yet,” USEC spokesman Paul Jacobson told WC Monitor yesterday. “The three key factors that will weigh on the future of the plant will continue to remain in effect, and that is the power, what the marketplace conditions are and making productive use of the plant’s capacity, whether it’s through tails re-enrichment or through other means.” DOE has so far been silent on the prospects for such a program to re-enrich a portion of its inventory of depleted uranium hexafluoride tails.
In its filing, TVA said it is prepared in the event the Paducah plant should shut down. The utility fuels its reactors with enriched uranium produced at USEC’s facility, and said that it has enough uranium on hand for the near-term. “For the long-term, deliveries from this supplier through the end of the contract periods are not expected to be affected by the discontinuation of operations of its plant. If necessary, TVA’s material can be pre-produced and stored until it is needed. The supplier also has other sources of supply from which to provide enrichment services,” TVA’s filing states.