(December 22, 2002) Louisiana Energy Services , which wants to build a uranium enrichment plant in Hartsville, Tennessee, treated around 20 officials and residents from around Hartsville to a visit to the Netherlands.
(577.5461) WISE Amsterdam - The main purpose of the visit was to tour the Urenco uranium enrichment plant in Almelo. Louisiana Energy Services (LES), a joint venture lead by Urenco and including various U.S. utilities, wants to build a similar plant in Hartsville in the US state of Tennessee. LES is trying to convince officials of surrounding counties to sell or lease land and grant appropriate zoning (land use permission) for the nuclear facility.
The visitors returned with generally positive impressions of the Almelo plant, which they described as clean and well-run (1). However, they had several concerns.
Top of the list is what happens to the plant's radioactive waste products. Only a small amount of the uranium passing through the plant is used to manufacture nuclear fuel; most of it ends up as "tails", depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6), a highly toxic, volatile substance that remains radioactive for millions of years. County officials want a written agreement with LES on what would happen to the "tails" (2).
Urenco Netherlands has three options for dealing with these "tails" - options that might not be open to LES. Urenco likes to send them to Russia for "re-enrichment" (3), but Canada forbids this for uranium of Canadian origin (4). Alternatively, a plant in France converts them to uranium oxide, which is chemically less dangerous, for storage. In the U.S., a contract to build two conversion plants has only recently been awarded, and conversion of existing "tails" is expected to take 25 years (5). This leaves the third option - storage on-site as toxic, volatile hexafluoride.
Another concern was jobs. LES have admitted that about 70% of the jobs would go to skilled technical workers with at least a two-year college degree and experience in a nuclear-related industry (6). Only a minority of the jobs would therefore go to existing local residents.
Circumventing democracy
As well as looking for local support, LES needs federal approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in order to build the plant. LES' previous attempt to build a similar plant in Homer, Louisiana, was the only occasion that the NRC turned down an application for a new nuclear plant without the decision being overturned on appeal (7).
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PHILIPS AND URENCO What actually happened is that Philips was involved from the start in Urenco, and back in 1969 bought the site on which Urenco Almelo stands now. Philips had a large share in Urenco for about 10 years, but then, like other companies involved, wanted out. The Dutch government bought up nearly all of the shares (98.9%), with the remaining 1.1% owned by Philips and others. |
This time, LES submitted a set of "white papers" to the NRC in an attempt to get the NRC to pre-judge key licensing issues in their favor, even before a license application has been submitted (8). NIRS and others have written to the NRC urging rejection of this attempt to stifle public input in the licensing process (9).
This was not the only LES attempt to circumvent the democratic process. LES looked at three sites before selecting Hartsville. One of these was in Unicoi County, where Alderman Johnny Lynch received a threat that if the Town of Unicoi didn't stop opposing the project, the town council would be abolished (10).
Security risk
Another issue is the risk to national security. The US Enrichment Corporation (USEC) has repeatedly argued to the NRC that the LES project could threaten national security (11). USEC's concerns revolve principally around the substantial foreign ownership component in LES.
However, there is another reason to regard LES as a security risk. LES lead partner Urenco has had its uranium enrichment technology stolen by both Pakistan (12) and Iraq (13). Pakistan used the technology to make nuclear weapons. It now seems that Pakistan has, in turn, passed the technology on to North Korea (14). Therefore, 2 out of 3 countries in what President Bush calls the "axis of evil" have obtained nuclear weapons technology from Urenco.
A third way in which the LES project could threaten national security is by causing prices of enriched uranium to destabilize, according to USEC (15). This could jeopardize the "Megatons to Megawatts" project, which converts high-enriched uranium from Russian nuclear weapons into fuel for US reactors.
Ironically, USEC itself faces a proposed US$60,000 fine for failing to protect classified information at its Paducah, Kentucky plant (16), and a lawsuit for allegedly falsifying records of workers' exposure to radiation at its now-closed Portsmouth plant in Piketon, Ohio (17).
Enrichment?
All of this shows that, while the LES plant might "enrich" Hartsville by bringing money into the area, only some of this would "trickle-down" to current residents. With its large quantities of waste which remains radioactive for millions of years, and its national security risks, LES is therefore not a "smart choice" for local economic development.
For more information, see the NIRS web site, or the web site of Citizens for Smart Choices, the local campaign against LES: www.stoples.org
References
- The Tennessean, 17 November 2002
- The Tennessean, 16 November 2002
- www.wise-uranium.org/edumu.html
- WISE News Communique 502.4951, "Canada holding up Russian enrichment of Urenco's tails"
- www.wise-uranium.org/ediss.html#DOEDU
- The Tennessean, 15 November 2002
- WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 571.5426, "Louisiana Energy Services tries again in Tennessee"
- www.nirs.org/LESwhitepaperbackground.htm
- NIRS letter to NRC, 7 November 2002 (www.nirs.org/LESwhitepapercomments.htm)
- The Elizabethton Star, 10 July 2002
- Platts, 8 November 2002
- WISE News Communique 499-500.4932, "Uranium enrichment: No capacity growth in 20 years"
- WISE News Communique 451.4455, "Urenco-Iraq espionage investigation"
- 2 Vandaag (Dutch TV), 23 October 2002
- Charles Yulish of USEC, quoted in The Tennessean, 19 November 2002
- NRC news release, 7 November 2002
- www.ohio.com, 20 November 2002
Contact: Michael Mariotte at NIRS