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| Science & Technology |
| USDOE Denies Uranium enrichment loan guarantee |
| 2009-07-28 |
| The Department of Energy has denied USEC Inc.'s application for a $2 billion loan guarantee, and the company has started "demobilizing" the American Centrifuge Project, which currently employs about 450 at its Oak Ridge manufacturing site. USEC Chief Executive Officer John K.Welch, after learning that DOE would not grant the loan guarantee, made this statement today: "We are shocked and disappointed by DOE's decision. The American Centrifuge met the original intent of the loan guarantee program in that it would have used an innovative, but proven, technology, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and created thousands of immediate jobs across the United States. USEC was the beneficiary of court decisions that allowed limiting import of Russian enriched U, so the company may have thought it was on a win streak - also fwiw, the US imports a lot of enriched U "Our application has been pending for a year, and we have addressed any concerns the department raised. Technically, we operated the American Centrifuge technology in a lead cascade for approximately 235,000 machine hours. Financially, we have invested $1.5 billion dollars in the project and offered $1 billion of additional corporate support. It is unclear how DOE expects to find innovative technologies that assume zero risk, but the American Centrifuge clearly meets the energy security and climate change goals of the Obama administration." The company has been pushing every button possible in recent months to save the multi-billion-dollar uranium-enrichment project under construction at Piketon, Ohio, and had threatened to start scaling down the work if DOE didn't proceed. Elected officials from Tennessee, including Gov. Phil Bredesen, U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, and U.S. Reps. Zach Wamp and Lincoln Davis, had gone to bat for USEC and urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to intervene and help back the program touted as a key part of the nation's nuclear renaissance. |
| Posted by:Lord garth |
| #4 Nuclear energy in the US is not practical as there's no place to safely store waste. Obama MADE SURE OF THAT when he ordered Yucca Mountain shut down. |
| Posted by: DMFD 2009-07-28 19:41 |
| #3 "USDOE" > the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION??? suppors NUKULAARISM??? Gut nuthin. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-07-28 18:22 |
| #2 Current leadership can be modeled by brownian motion. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2009-07-28 15:30 |
| #1 It's not like the US needs energy production. How long before Obama asks his good buddies in Tehran if we can import some of their enriched uranium. |
| Posted by: ed 2009-07-28 14:57 |