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WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy says it has given Restoration Services Inc. a contract for assistance in decommissioning an Ohio nuclear facility. The contract requires the Oak Ridge, Tenn., woman-owned company to provide technical services for the remediation, decontamination and decommissioning of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant at the Energy Department's site in Piketon, Ohio.

March 2, USEC stock plunged a walloping 24.85 percent, from $5.03 to $3.78 per share, with market value dropping about $200 million in four days, hitting south Ohio especially hard. USEC had a 50 percent profit loss in 2008 compared to 2007, but the company has larger issues. Its hypothetical centrifuge plant in Piketon now ranks fourth among competing domestic enrichment projects, out-classed by projects in New Mexico, Idaho and North Carolina in terms of cost, technical demonstration and schedule. This comes just as the capital crisis severely restricts construction of nuclear reactors, reducing domestic demand forecasts to only two new enrichment projects. The others would produce uranium cheap enough to export. But USEC's chances of developing an export market are nil, not only for its high prices, but because USEC has alienated foreign customers through monopolistic support of protectionist measures to keep out foreign uranium.

About three years ago, the U.S. Enrichment Corp. in Piketon contracted with Honeywell to set up a team of skilled professionals to assist with the American Centrifuge process. There is a large worldwide market for fuel grade uranium, and the demand is expected to increase as new nuclear plants come on line. It was anticipated that the Department of Energy would give USEC a $2 billion loan guarantee, so it could secure private financing to continue the program. Our politicians indicated they were in favor the loan guarantee. Then, last month, DOE decided it would put off the loan guarantee for six months. This caused the skilled team of more than 100 people at Honeywell to lose their jobs. All this was bad enough, but then the media indicated our government had given a $2 billion loan to General Electric (this was not a guarantee, but an actual loan). Then the media announced our government has encouraged a $2 billion loan guarantee to Brazil's Petrobras oil company, so it can drill for oil off that coast.

The U.S. Energy Department said on Tuesday it has agreed to delay the final review of USEC Inc's (USU.N) application for a loan guarantee to fund a new uranium enrichment processing plant. "The additional time will allow USEC to make efforts to fully address issues DOE has identified relating to the readiness of the company's uranium enrichment technology," the department said. Last month, the department asked USEC to pull its loan request for the planned American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio.

In one of Ohio's poorest regions, a jazz combo played "Pennies From Heaven." Executives from bitterly competitive companies embraced. Politicians of the two parties declared esteem for one another. A Republican senator gave a shout-out to a union leader. Americans even applauded the French. The world didn't come to an end, but there were many stars in alignment Thursday, June 18, as dignitaries announced plans to turn a contaminated Cold War-era atomic plant into America's first "clean energy park," home to Ohio's first nuclear reactor in two decades. The new Southern Ohio Clean Energy Park Alliance will prepare plans and licensing documents to locate at least one reactor on a 3,700-acre federal complex 100 miles southeast of Dayton.

A multibillion-dollar nuclear power plant proposed for southern Ohio would be the first started in the U.S. since before the Three Mile Island accident. "I'm a big cheerleader for nuclear power, and I always have been," Gov. Ted Strickland told The Dispatch. "I'm excited about it." Strickland and representatives from an alliance of energy companies will be in Piketon Thursday morning for the formal announcement by Duke Energy and the French nuclear energy company Areva. Sen. George V. Voinovich, R-Ohio, and Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Loveland, also will be on hand.

Job-starved southern Ohioans are being promised a shiny new nuclear plant. But the announcement has come with a cruel reminder, and the scent of a desperate hoax. Using the gargantuan corpse of the shuttered Portsmouth-Piketon uranium enrichment plant as his backdrop, U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) punctuated his enthusiastic endorsement the new nuke by proclaiming that, with his support, the US government has paid thousands of Ohio workers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the health damage they suffered from being irradiated while working there. What was he thinking?

The U.S. Enrichment Corp. and Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services today announced plans to form a joint venture known as American Centrifuge Manufacturing LLC, which will become the lead organization in production of machines for the new uranium-enrichment plant at Piketon, Ohio. According to Elizabeth Stuckle, the USEC spokeswoman at headquarters in Maryland, the partnership will be a 55/45 pecentage arrangement with USEC holding 55 percent of the newly formed company that will manage the manufacturing program that ultimately will produce 11,500 machines -- and perhaps more if there's an expanded enrichment facility. "This means all manufacturing suppliers who are manufacturing parts for the American Centrifiuge plant will report up through this joint venture," Stuckle said. B&W Technnical Services Clinch River has been a manufacturer of components for the centrifuges under a contract with USEC since 2007. Now the partnership will be managing that work as well as other manufacturing activities for the AC100 machines in West Virginia, etc..

The Department of Energy (DOE) last week released a request for proposals (RFP) for a contractor to perform Depleted Uranium Hexafluoride (DUF6) Operations at the two DUF6 conversion facilities at Piketon and Paducah, Kentucky. The procurement will be for a single contractor to be awarded two cost-plus-award-fee contracts. The contract period will be for five years with a total estimated cost for the two contracts of $350-450 million. These facilities will convert DOE's inventory of DUF6, located at the Portsmouth and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plants, into a stable chemical form that will be acceptable for transportation, reuse or disposal. The contractor will also provide cylinder surveillance and maintenance of the DUF6, low-enrichment uranium hexafluoride (UF6) and natural assay UF6 as well as empty the cylinders that store the DUF6 in a safe and environmentally acceptable manner. The contracts are expected to be awarded in 2010

USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU) today announced that it expects the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to make a decision on a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee by early August. A loan guarantee conditional commitment would allow USEC to continue deployment of its American Centrifuge Plant, currently being built in Piketon, Ohio, and would ensure the security of thousands of jobs created across the country by the plant's construction and manufacturing activities. The Company also said that at the direction of its board of directors it is preparing demobilization plans for the American Centrifuge Plant if it does not receive a conditional commitment by early August. USEC announced in February a slowdown in the planned escalation of spending on the project and has stated that a further delay in obtaining a DOE loan guarantee would require the Company to implement further project spending reductions.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is rushing to meet an April 2 deadline to turn over stacks of internal documents on a recent reclassification of depleted uranium. Advertisement The NRC now considers it the least hazardous type of low-level radioactive waste, even in large quantities. Members of Congress have demanded the documents because they believe the agency's March 18 decision disregards the risk to public health. The change would allow federal facilities and companies around the country to dispose of more than 1 million tons of depleted uranium in Utah and Texas.

During their Cold War service, employees of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant "were generally happy in the belief that their efforts were protecting the country," states Paul Becker (University of Dayton) and Alan Bruce (Quinnipiac University) in the Western Criminology Review article "State Corporate Crime and the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant" (2007). Due to the threat of missiles from Russia and China, the public supported the nuclear industry, accepted the sense of urgency and as a result "environmental concerns were less important than the pressing demands of the Cold War," a 2000 Department of Energy report stated.

During their Cold War service, employees of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant "were generally happy in the belief that their efforts were protecting the country," states Paul Becker (University of Dayton) and Alan Bruce (Quinnipiac University) in the Western Criminology Review article "State Corporate Crime and the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant" (2007). Due to the threat of missiles from Russia and China, the public supported the nuclear industry, accepted the sense of urgency and as a result "environmental concerns were less important than the pressing demands of the Cold War," a 2000 Department of Energy report stated.

"The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new component to clean-up efforts at the U.S. Department of Energy's former Gaseous Diffusion Plant. On Tuesday, the state EPA said it has approved plans from the U.S. Department of Energy that will allow proper cleanup and, in some cases, tearing down of buildings that were used to produce enriched uranium until 2001. Currently, the Department of Energy is conducting cleanup of soil and water at the site under a 1989 agreement, but the new agreement allows it to begin decontamination and decommissioning work in the buildings on the site as well. The Energy department committed $303 million in cleanup funds for 2010, and an additional $118 million was awarded from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown's office said $500 million is set aside for cleanup efforts in the 2011 Energy department budget."

USEC Inc. has completed its review of the cost and schedule for the American Centrifuge Plant and affirmed its previously disclosed estimate of completing the project at $3.5 billion, which includes amounts spent to date but excludes financing costs and financial assurance.