OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) — On Wednesday, a nuclear power plant fuel supplier announced a $60 million expansion in Tennessee, pledging to increase and resume production of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium at its Ohio site.
As the United States increases its reliance on nuclear power as a climate change answer, Centrus Energy is expanding its enormous facility in Oak Ridge. They manufacture and test 40-foot-high centrifuges in the 440,000-square-foot Tennessee plant, which will be shipped to the company’s enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio. On Wednesday, the corporation toured the centrifuges to reporters while draping tarps over other sensitive equipment.
A number of businesses, including Centrus, are attempting to enrich uranium in the United States, which is presently reliant on outside suppliers. According to the Department of Energy, Russia supplies roughly 35% of the nuclear fuel imported by the United States and possesses around 44% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity. In reaction to the United States’ decision to prohibit Russian uranium beginning in 2028, Russia only last week declared it will temporarily restrict its exports of enriched uranium to the United States.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Western nuclear operators have been searching for alternative nuclear fuel supplies, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights on Wednesday.
Amir Vexler, the president and CEO of Centrus, told reporters on Wednesday that the company’s board had authorized the plans a few weeks prior, and that Russia had not made the choice to expand. However, he claimed that the action demonstrates why the United States cannot rely on other nations to supply its nuclear fuel.
One of the most important stabilizers in our grid’s sources is nuclear. According to Vexler, nuclear fuel is a crucial component of that. Why wouldn’t you be concerned about the safety of our grid’s supply of that essential component?
The business collaborates with the neighboring Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is well-known for being one of the institutions that contributed to the creation of the atomic bomb. The goal of Centrus’ expansion is to access a $3.4 billion Department of Energy money designated for domestic uranium enrichment. The company, which has its headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, employs roughly 300 people at the moment, 120 of whom work in Oak Ridge. In Oak Ridge, the expansion might result in an additional 300.
Another business, Orano USA, intends to construct a uranium enrichment facility in the same city.
To help prevent the worst effects of climate change, the Biden administration set a goal this month to at least triple nuclear power in the US by 2050. The administration’s new plan calls for the United States to add 200 gigawatts of new nuclear energy capacity. Although the precise amount varies by area and depends on energy demand, one gigawatt may power between 750,000 and 1 million houses for a year.
There are currently 94 reactors in operation in the US that generate electricity without releasing greenhouse gasses that warm the planet. Since the 1990s, approximately one-fifth of the country’s electricity has come from nuclear power.
The strategy calls for a number of actions to increase nuclear power, including the construction of huge gigawatt-scale reactors, small modular reactors, and microreactors, as well as the extension of the life of certain current reactors and efforts to restart those that were retired for financial reasons. It also suggests strengthening nuclear personnel development and licensing.
Donald Trump, the incoming president, has stated that he is also interested in creating smaller nuclear reactors of the future.
Producing uranium enriched to levels typical of nuclear power plants in operation today, as well as at a higher level for the kind of commercial small reactors being developed in the U.S.—though none are yet under construction—is part of Centrus’ business plan. American Centrifuge Operating, a Centrus company, was one of four businesses given a Department of Energy contract to expand the higher-level uranium enrichment.
Concerns over the more highly enriched uranium have been voiced by certain advocates.
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ director of nuclear power, Edwin Lyman, stated that his organization believes uranium is sufficiently enriched during the process to produce nuclear weapons and is concerned about the security of preventing the material from ending up in the wrong hands at enrichment plants, while traveling to other locations, or at some of the small reactors that are still under construction.
The concern is that we believe that this material is more dangerous than is currently widely accepted, Lyman said.
Asked about those kind of concerns, Vexler praised the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the best regulator in the business, saying regulators ensure the material is safeguarded properly.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott contributed from Providence, Rhode Island.
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