DOE Wants Comments on Possible Changes to Uranium Transfers
The U.S. Department of Energy is asking for comments and information by April 10 about a possible change in its transfers of uranium for cleanup services at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio.
The U.S. Department of Energy is asking for comments and information about a possible change in its transfers of uranium for cleanup services at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. DOE is considering a new Secretarial Determination covering potential continued transfers and issued a Request for Information last July seeking information about uranium markets and domestic uranium, conversion, and enrichment industries and the potential effects of DOE uranium transfers on the domestic industries; the agency also commissioned an independent analysis of the potential effects of various levels of uranium transfers. The public review now under way will contribute to and aid in deciding on the Secretarial Determination.
DOE wants comments, data, and information on or before April 10. They may be emailed to [email protected] or mailed to Ms. Cheryl Moss Herman, U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Mailstop NE-32, 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874-1290. If possible, DOE asks that all items be submitted on a compact disk, in which case it is not necessary to include printed copies.
DOE holds inventories of uranium in various forms, including low-enriched uranium (LEU), highly-enriched uranium (HEU), depleted uranium (DU), and natural uranium (NU), that have been declared excess and are not dedicated to U.S. national security missions. DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy, Office of Environmental Management, and National Nuclear Security Administration coordinate the management of these uranium inventories, and DOE in recent years has managed its excess uranium inventory in part by transferring uranium in exchange for cleanup services at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and for down-blending of highly-enriched uranium to LEU. DOE currently transfers approximately 2,100 metric tons of natural uranium equivalent per year.
DOE has commissioned a report by ERI that analyzes four scenarios involving different volumes of DOE transfers.