Urenco’s US enrichment plant licensed to expand

Urenco’s US enrichment plant licensed to expand
Urenco USA (UUSA) has been granted a licence by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to expand its Eunice, New Mexico uranium enrichment plant to 10 million SWU/yr, able to supply about 60% of US needs in the 2020s. This will cramp the potential market for intending competitors, including Areva, Centrus (USEC) and Global Laser Enrichment.  However, for the time being UUSA is expanding only to just under half this figure.  The NRC also amended UUSA’s licence to allow it to use high-assay depleted uranium (DU) tails from early military enrichment as feed for the new improved centrifuges it has been using since 2012.

The UUSA licence amendment also has implications for construction of a proposed deconversion plant in New Mexico by International Isotopes (INIS) to treat depleted uranium (DU) fluoride. In 2012 it received a NRC licence to build and operate a 6,500 t/y deconversion plant and fluorine extraction facility near Hobbes, 50 km from the UUSA plant at Eunice.  It then put the project on hold until “additional uranium enrichment capacity comes on line that can provide us with additional opportunities to contract for deconversion service of that material.” The newly-amended UUSA licence allows it to store 25,000 cylinders of depleted uranium fluoride on site (210,000 tonnes DU), which will accumulate at about 1000 cylinders per year there when the plant is running at full licensed capacity.  Worldwide, about 8000 cylinders of DU fluoride (with 67,000 t contained DU) commence indefinite storage each year at enrichment plants, and there is now over 1.5 million tonnes DU awaiting use in future fast reactors. The INIS plant would take about 575 of these cylinders per year from UUSA, producing hydrofluoric acid for sale and depleted uranium oxide for storage in stable form.
WNN 31/3/15.  US fuel cycle