Laptop Battery A consortium of European and United States nuclear companies said today that it would apply soon for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a $1.1 billion plant for processing reactor fuel, the first in this country in half a century and one of the largest private nuclear projects here since the 1980's.
In the July 24 story "Nuclear dump OK lauded, criticized, " nuclear power group, Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch, said, "Since the plant (Oyster Creek) opened in December 1969, spent fuel has never been moved from the plant site. Transporting it will create a danger the public has never had to contend with before." This statement is false.
Thinkpad The plant would enrich uranium for use in power plants, using a technology that consumes about 5 percent as much electricity as the one now used in the United States. It would break a domestic monopoly held by USEC Inc., formerly the United States Enrichment Corporation, which runs an Atomic Energy Commission plant in Paducah, Ky., that was privatized in July 1998.
According to the indictment, Jones would steal various IBM and Penguin computer servers from Verisign's warehouse in Virginia and sell them to Johnson. Johnson would then sell the servers to several individuals, who would sometimes place them for sale on eBay. As a result of this scheme, the indictment alleges that Jones and Johnson caused Verisign to lose more than $120, 000 worth of computer equipment. In the indictment, Jones and Johnson are charged in three counts with causing the interstate transportation of stolen property, namely IBM 330 and 335 servers, in violation of 18 U.S.C.
Microsoft USEC announced a month ago that it would also seek to build a plant but that it would first have to modernize a prototype plant tested in the 1980's.
Iran said its actions Tuesday were to prepare for research into nuclear fuel technology only and that it was not resuming work to produce nuclear fuel.
Laptop Computers The consortium's proposal poses a serious threat to USEC, some experts said. "As a business, they are dead," Thomas L. Neff, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of USEC. In the 1990's, Dr. Neff came up with the idea of buying weapons-grade uranium from Russia and diluting it for use in United States reactors, a job once done by the Energy Department and now done by USEC. If USEC does not build an enrichment plant, he said, it will become merely a broker of the Russian uranium.
owners of the Salem 1 and 2 nuclear reactors in South Jersey. The plant has been cited numerous times by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for poor management and lax maintenance. Making matters worse, Exelon talks openly about building new nuclear plants, even though there are no safe storage options for nuclear waste.
Laptop Computer Patrick C. Upson, the chairman of the consortium, said, "We have a significant head-start on the technical side."
Those of us who live close to the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey should not have to live in fear of becoming a possible "prompt fatality." Continuing to promote fossil fuels and nuclear power for our energy needs is not only irresponsible but shortsighted. Eventually, we will run out of fossil fuels. destructive by using highly dangerous nuclear power. We no longer have to accept these outdated, polluting power sources now that safe, renewable energy is available.
Desktop Computer But USEC executives said their technology would be even better.
Notebooks "USEC remains the leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel in the United States market, and we're on track to be enriching uranium using new advanced gas centrifuges by the end of the decade," a spokesman for the company, Charles Yulish, said. "We expect our technology to be proven the most efficient in the world."
Lenovo The company wants to incorporate advanced composite materials into the Energy Department's older centrifuge design. When the plant was privatized four years ago, the company said it would seek to commercialize an enrichment technology using lasers, but it later dropped the idea.
Hard Drive USEC has shut down one of two plants it took over, and it has kept itself afloat partly by winning a trade case and forcing tariffs on two European suppliers that it accused of taking government subsidies. But a plant built here using European technology would face no such tariffs.
Travelstar USEC has also raised revenue by taking electricity it had bought under long-term contracts, intending to use it for enrichment, and selling it in peak demand periods.
Gateway The consortium raising the challenge includes Urenco, a British-Dutch-German company that uses a technology called gas centrifuge to enrich uranium; the Cameco Corporation of Canada, the world's largest uranium supplier; the Westinghouse Electric Company and Fluor Daniel, which are active in many areas of the nuclear industry; and affiliates of three companies that operate power reactors in the United States: Exelon, Entergy and Duke Energy.
Laptop Parts The same group, but with a different United States utility partner, tried several years ago to build a plant in Louisiana, but it gave up because of opposition at the site.
Software This time, Mr. Upson said, the partnership will seek to build at a site that is already licensed for nuclear uses.
Hard Drives Industry experts say the group is looking at sites in Lynchburg, Va.; Wilmington, N.C.; and Erwin, Tenn. All have been used for uranium enrichment. Environmental advocates in Erwin have already organized to oppose that choice.
Electronics The consortium, still known as Louisiana Energy Services, said it would pick a site soon.
Canon Enrichment means raising the proportion of uranium-235, the kind that is easy to split in reactors. Natural uranium is about 0.7 percent uranium-235. The problem is that the dominant type of uranium, uranium-238, is chemically identical; the only difference is in the weight. USEC's plant, built in the 1950's, uses a method called gaseous diffusion, in which uranium, converted to gaseous form, is forced through a barrier, with one type slightly more likely to pass through than the other. The European technology uses a centrifuge.
Desktop Pc Enrichment is measured by "separative work units," or S.W.U.'s, and the United States market is about 11 million units a year. USEC meets more than half of United States demand by blending down Russian bomb uranium. USEC also enriches uranium at the plant in Paducah. It shut down a plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, with a capacity of 10.5 million units.
Desktop Computers The consortium plans to build a plant that would begin operation in 2007 or 2008 and reach a capacity of 3 million units a year in 2012.
Think Pad USEC shares closed at $7.06, down 10 cents.
Repair By Matthew L. Wald
New York Times - 7/23/2002
Topic: Nuclear
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