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"The closure of a South Carolina nuclear waste facility has spurred a debate in Utah and nationwide about whether to allow downblending, a process that mixes hotter nuclear waste with less radioactive material so it can be stored at facilities like EnergySolutions'. Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah policy director Christopher Thomas says downblending just creates pockets of more hazardous Class B and C waste, which is currently not allowed in the state. "That does not protect the state of Utah," Thomas says, "that doesn't respect our state rules and in fact it doesn't respect federal guidance, which has held for many years that these kinds of nuclear waste should not be mixed just for the purpose of lowering the waste classification." The Utah Radiation Control Board meets today to consider banning downblending. The board will also hear a presentation from EnergySolutions, which is only allowed to store the lowest-level waste, Class A, at its facility in the west desert."

The National Nuclear Security Administration announced today that 100 tons of highly enriched uranium -- enough for about 2,200 nuclear bombs -- had been downblended over the past decade to eliminate its weapons capability. All told, the U.S. government has designated 217 tons of HEU as "excess" and scheduled for downblending.

"A spokesman with EnergySolutions today confirmed the management changes at the Oak Ridge-based isotek Systems, the Dept. of Energy contractor heading the project to downblend and disposition the stockpile of Uranium-233 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. EnergySolutions is lead partner in Isotek, joined by Nuclear Fuel Services and Burns and Roe. "We can confirm and are very pleased that Jim Bolon will lead the Isotek project," EnergySolutions spokesman Mark Walker said by e-mail. Bolon is replacing Ron Shaffer as president of the Oak Ridge contractor organization."

A legislative provision that would have linked US import limits on Russian low-enriched uranium to additional downblending of Russian high-enriched uranium was not included in a funding bill passed by the House of Representatives late Thursday. The provision, which was written by Pete Domenici, a Republican senator from New Mexico, was included in the Senate version of the bill.

USEC and Techsnabexport, or Tenex, have agreed to amend the pricing methodology used for the final years of the US-Russia high-enriched uranium agreement, USEC said in a February 20 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. USEC estimated that under the new methodology, the total amount Russia receives under the 20-year contract, which expires at the end of 2013, "will substantially exceed $8 billion." In a filing a year ago, USEC said the contract allows adjustments to be made after 2007 to ensure that Tenex "receives at least approximately $7.6 billion." USEC also said, "We do not expect that any adjustments will be required." The contract covers the so-called SWU component of the low-enriched uranium produced from the downblending of HEU from Russian nuclear weapons. The amendment applies to deliveries in the years 2010-2013. The amendment must be approved by the US and Russian governments, USEC said. USEC and Tenex are their governments' executive agents for the HEU agreement.

The U.S. government spent billions and billions of dollars (OK, I know that doesn't sound like much these days) enriching uranium for the nation's arsenal of nuclear weapons, and so where does the money go as the Dept. of Energy carries out plans to downblend the surplus stocks of bomb-grade stuff and otherwise divest itself of uranium supplies? Well, that kind of depends. In the DOE report, "Excess Uranium Inventory Management Plan," which was released in December, there's an appendix that deals with legal aspects of uranium sales and the money trail.

"Competition from inside and outside the state as EnergySolutions and other companies scrap for turf. The ferocious competition in the nation's radioactive waste business burst into full display Tuesday at a Utah Radiation Control Board meeting. First, panel members heard about a plans for a new disposal site in Tooele County, not far from where Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions Inc. operates a landfill that accepts about 98 percent of the nation's low-level radioactive waste. The board then heard two EnergySolutions' competitors tell why the state should bar "downblending," a limited industry practice that allows hotter Class B & C waste to be mixed with the Class A waste permitted in Utah so that the waste does not have to be stored. "

"A measure intended to block a "back-door" method of dumping radioactive waste in Tennessee is headed for a vote in the state Senate after a key committee approved the bill Tuesday. A Utah-based company, EnergySolutions, said it is requesting only to treat nuclear material at its Oak Ridge facility and then ship it out of state. But state Sen. Andy Berke, D-Chattanooga, who sponsored the bill, said banning the practice of "downblending" nuclear material - which involves diluting radioactive waste with less toxic materials - is the only way to avoid becoming "the world's radioactive dumping grounds." "This is about stopping this process that no one else does and has never been done commercially," Berke said."

"In the run-up to the Nuclear Security Summit, the Project On Government Oversight said cancellation of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12 should be among the U.S. commitments. Here's what POGO said on UPF: "The U.S. should cancel the construction of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at Y-12 National Security Complex, which creates a long-term mission for large stocks of HEU to be available for the production of up to 200 new secondaries per year. The highly-respected JASON group's recent study found that the nation's nuclear warheads, including the HEU secondaries, can continue to be extended safely and certifiably for decades. Without the UPF, the U.S. still has the capacity to manufacture new secondaries. The $3.5 billion estimated cost of UPF can be reallocated towards the downblending budget.""

"A competition between nuclear waste dumps has pulled the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into an unusual reconsideration of its rules to allow moderately radioactive materials to be diluted into a milder category that is easier to bury. At issue is whether a site in Utah that is licensed to accept only the mildest category of radioactive waste, called Class A, could accept far more potent materials, known as Class B and C wastes, by blending the three together. Even low-level radioactive waste is a growing problem, with few licensed repositories to dispose of it. The problem dates from the early 1980s, when Congress said that the federal government would take care of high-level waste, like spent fuel from nuclear power plants, but that the states would have to find sites for low-level material, like the radiation sources used in cancer treatments and industrial X-rays, and filters used in nuclear plants."

"Utah, say federal regulators, can help solve a big problem for the nuclear industry: the pileup of low-level radioactive waste at many of the nation's reactors. Much of the hottest low-level waste -- though far less radioactive than used fuel rods -- is stored at 90 power plants because nuclear companies have nowhere to dispose of it. So, staff at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has proposed changing federal rules to make that waste permissible at the EnergySolutions Inc. disposal site in Utah through "blending." By allowing more hazardous "Class B and C waste" to be mixed with lower-hazard "Class A" waste, regulators would make the blend legal for disposal at EnergySolutions, the only commercial site open to low-level radioactive waste from 36 states. The blending proposal reflects a big shift in NRC policy, and it directly contradicts the public positions of Gov. Gary Herbert, the Utah Division of Radiation Control and the state's Radiation Control Board. The Utahns object to blending "when the intent is to alter the waste classification for the purposes of disposal site access." Five years ago, Utah banned "Class B and Class C" low-level radioactive waste. "

"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing a rule change that would allow hotter radioactive waste to be mixed with less hazardous waste so it could be disposed of in Utah. Utah is home to the only low-level radioactive waste facility available to 36 states. But it only disposes of Class A waste, considered the least hazardous. NRC regulators are proposing the blending of hotter Class B and C waste with Class A waste so that it can legally come to Utah. Much of the nation's class B and C waste has had no place to go in the past two years since a South Carolina facility was closed to all but three states. An NRC paper cites industry estimates that blended waste could slash the volume of orphaned Class B and Class C waste by two-thirds, from 12,000 cubic feet a year to about 4,000 cubic feet."

"The Department of Energy's Inspector General this week released an audit report critical of the agency's management of the uranium-233 down-blending and disposition project in Oak Ridge. The report cited the project's growing cost and continuing uncertainties. The project, which is still in the design phase, is supposed to process about 1.4 metric tons of uranium stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The uranium stockpile contains significant quantities of fissionable U-233 - a strategic nuclear material - with highly radioactive decay products that make the project complex and potentially dangerous. The current cost estimate is about $477 million."

"On Monday, the Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General (IG) released a report on why it has been taking so long for DOE to secure the stock of Uranium-233 (U-233) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The stock of U-233, a highly radioactive isotope with dangerous properties, still sits in a "deteriorating" ORNL facility even though DOE began planning to dispose of the material back in 2001. As some of you may recall, POGO actually has some pretty direct experience with this material. During a 2005 site visit, POGO investigators were able to park in front of the ORNL building that held the 1,000 cans of U-233 and walk around for about 15 minutes before guards finally approached them and escorted them from the area. We determined that ORNL was the most vulnerable site in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex."