The Louisiana Energy Services partnership plans on building the National Enrichment Facility (NEF) about five miles east of Eunice, New Mexico. The NEF plans on providing a sustainable domestic supply of slightly enriched uranium, also called ‘low enriched uranium’ or LEU, using Urenco’s gas centrifuge technology. Currently, USEC is the other uranium enrichment facility, using the more expensive gaseous diffusion technology. USEC is a publicly traded company, created under the Clinton-Gore Administration for the purposes of the Russia-US ‘swords for plowshares’ HEU deal. Under the HEU agreement, Russia’s counterpart supplied USEC with uranium from decommissioned Russian nuclear weapons. This uranium now supplies U.S. utilities with about 50 percent of the uranium used to power domestic nuclear power plants.

In 2001, the domestic uranium industry only produced 12 percent of its required supply of enriched uranium, while Russia exported 55 percent to the United States. Urenco supplied 16 percent of the U.S. demand. Urenco plans to increase its percentage of enriched uranium to about one-quarter of U.S. enrichment demand, once the plant is running at full capacity. This amounts to annual production of 3 million Separative Work Units (SWUs). A Separative Work Unit is the unit used to express the effort necessary to separate U-235 and U-238. The capacity of enrichment plants is measured in tons SW per year. For example, a large nuclear power station with a net electrical capacity of 1300 MW requires an annual amount of 25 tons SW (enriched uranium) to operate (with a concentration of 3.5 percent U-235).

The National Enrichment Facility will become Urenco’s North American debut of the company’s gas centrifuge technology, which the company boasts is the ‘world’s most advanced, energy-efficient and cost-effective uranium enrichment technology.’ It has reportedly been used for more than thirty years.

What is Gas Centrifuge Technology?

Only 0.7 percent of the weight of natural uranium, the U-235 isotope found in nature’s uranium, is the isotope needed to power a nuclear reactor. The U-235 isotope is the one that splits inside the core. It is this isotope which releases energy in the fission process. Because natural uranium can not power a nuclear reactor, the concentration of U-235 must be slightly increased, also known as ‘low enrichment,’ from 0.7 percent to between 3 and 5 percent. The enrichment occurs during the centrifuge process.

It is called the ‘gas centrifuge process” because gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF6) is fed into a cylindrical, high-speed rotor. The gas is whirled around inside thousands of centrifuges in a nearly friction-free environment, separating the fissionable U-235 isotope from the heavier U-238 isotope. The centrifugal motion pushes the heavier U-238 gas away from the useful U-235 gas, which remains closer to the rotor axis. The process is repeated until the desired enrichment percentage is achieved.

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