For the first time in almost 30 years, the U S Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a license to a European consortium to build a uranium enrichment facility in the southwestern state of New Mexico. Urenco, a consortium owned by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., the Dutch government and several German utilities, plans to break ground this summer and build a plant nearly identical to one operating in the Netherlands.
The plant will produce the sort of enriched uranium used by nuclear power plants.
It will use centrifuge technology that requires only about five per cent as much electricity as plants using gaseous diffusion systems, which have been used in the United States since World War II.
The technology is similar to but more advanced than what Iranians are using at a plant the United States is trying to close.
The New Mexico plant is scheduled to start enriching uranium in 2008, according to the consortium's American subsidiary, Louisiana Energy Services.
It will reach full capacity in 2012 or 2013 and could be expanded later if new nuclear reactors are ordered.
The consortium is made up of the European firm Urenco, British Nuclear Fuels and smaller U S partners. It calls itself Louisiana Energy Services.
Louisiana Energy Services said in a statement the plant's gas-centrifuge technology has operated safely in Europe for 30 years.
No new nuclear plants have been built in the U S since a fire at the Three Mile Island facility in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania in 1979.
UNI XC PA PC0950
