DOE to sell depleted uranium tails to GLE for laser enrichment

摘要

The Department of Energy announced on November 10 that it has agreed to sell depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF_6) to GE Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) for enrichment at a facility GLE proposes to build near the DOE's shuttered Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in western Kentucky. According to a November 11 press release from Silex Systems Ltd., which developed the laser technology licensed by GLE, the agreement provides for the sale of approximately 300,000 metric tons of uranium in the form of high-assay tails. The agreement follows the DOE's selection in 2013 of GLE's proposal to construct a facility to reenrich the tails left at Paducah and Portsmouth after decades of gaseous diffusion enrichment (NN, Jan. 2014, p. 83). The depleted uranium is currently stored in approximately 65,000 storage cylinders at the DOE's Paducah and Portsmouth sites. The proposed Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility would produce natural uranium that could be used to fuel commercial nuclear reactors, and the resulting low-assay tails would be returned to the DOE for disposition.