U.S. nuke commission approves uranium enrichment plant

PanARMENIAN.Net - A nuclear power partnership of General Electric Co. and Tokyo-based Hitachi Ltd. received federal approval Tuesday, Sept 25, to build the first plant to enrich uranium for use in commercial reactors using a classified laser technology, The Associated Press reports.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license to General Electric-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC to build and operate a uranium enrichment plant near Wilmington deploying the laser technology instead of costlier centrifuges.

Nuclear weapons control advocates fear that allowing companies to use the cheaper and easier technology could increase the risk it falls into the wrong hands.

"We think the approval of the license was done without due consideration of proliferation," said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the global security program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We're already grappling with how to cope with Iran's nuclear enrichment capability" and the laser technology "could make the problem of global proliferation intractable and uncontrollable."

GE Hitachi said it hasn't yet decided whether the project will be profitable enough to launch construction of the $1 billion plant. Part of the evaluation will be weighing whether markets for enriched uranium will hold for years into the future, spokesman Christopher White said. But the company assured its hold on the classified technology proposed by the Australian company Silex Systems is secure.

The NRC license allows GE Hitachi to enrich uranium to 8 percent by weight. Uranium is enriched to 90 percent purity to build atomic bombs.

The United States and five other world powers have imposed sanctions on Iran because it has enriched uranium to 20 percent, a level that could be turned into weapons-grade material much more quickly than power-plant fuel.

The technology could enhance America's energy security because a majority of enriched uranium made to fuel the country's 104 operating nuclear reactors comes from foreign or government-aided sources, the company said.