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"Urenco is investigating after a worker at Germany's Gronau enrichment plant was exposed to uranium hexafluoride. The incident occurred on 21 January when, during preparation of a container, a release of the radioactive substance occurred. One employee of who was operating at that time was admitted to hospital as a precaution for 24 hours for observation. The affected air was passed through filters and the readings on the plant stack were below the regulatory limits, Urenco said in a statement. The appropriate authorities were immediately informed. Meanwhile, Urenco, which operates enrichment plants in the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, has deemed 2009 "another year of strong business performance." The company also says its fourth enrichment plant in the USA is ready to start commercial operation, subject to receipt of regulatory approval."

The Government's stake in Urenco, which owns nuclear fuel plants in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, will be sold off to help to repay the country's escalating debt mountain, the Prime Minister will announce today. Gordon Brown will also announce plans to sell off the Dartford Crossing, the Channel Tunnel and the Tote and will signal that he is restarting the privatisation of the Student Loan book, which was shelved in March because of poor market conditions.

The Government's stake in Urenco, which owns nuclear fuel plants in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, will be sold off to help to repay the country's escalating debt mountain, the Prime Minister will announce today. Gordon Brown will also announce plans to sell off the Dartford Crossing, the Channel Tunnel and the Tote and will signal that he is restarting the privatisation of the Student Loan book, which was shelved in March because of poor market conditions.

Environmentalists from the international pressure group Greenpeace are trumpeting their biggest success in years after German-Dutch company URENCO announced on Monday that it is ending the practice of sending spent nuclear fuel to Russia for reprocessing and storage. Radioactive loads on board foreign ships had been arriving at the port of St. Petersburg every month for a decade to be sent by rail to factories in Siberia and the Urals. Environmentalists feared that transporting such loads through the city presented a major threat to public health and environmental security. In 1999, they failed in their attempts to have the importing of spent nuclear fuel from abroad into Russia banned. In December 2000, the State Duma voted overwhelmingly to adopt the practice of importing irradiated fuel from other countries.

Environmentalists from the international pressure group Greenpeace are trumpeting their biggest success in years after German-Dutch company URENCO announced on Monday that it is ending the practice of sending spent nuclear fuel to Russia for reprocessing and storage. Radioactive loads on board foreign ships had been arriving at the port of St. Petersburg every month for a decade to be sent by rail to factories in Siberia and the Urals. Environmentalists feared that transporting such loads through the city presented a major threat to public health and environmental security. In 1999, they failed in their attempts to have the importing of spent nuclear fuel from abroad into Russia banned. In December 2000, the State Duma voted overwhelmingly to adopt the practice of importing irradiated fuel from other countries.

The government will sell off a raft of state assets, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was to say Monday as he bids to reclaim the initiative on reducing recession-hit Britain's debt. The government is to sell off 16 billion pounds (25.4 billion dollars) of assets, Brown was to say, according to extracts from a keynote speech to be given in London, setting out his vision for "enduring and sustainable growth." Brown was to outline details of initial sales that could raise three billion pounds, including the Channel Tunnel; the 33 percent stake in European uranium corsortium URENCO; the Tote bookmakers; the River Thames crossings at Dartford, east of London; and the Student Loans Company. The country is still in recession and has a forecast deficit this year of 175 billion pounds.

The government will sell off a raft of state assets, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was to say Monday as he bids to reclaim the initiative on reducing recession-hit Britain's debt. The government is to sell off 16 billion pounds (25.4 billion dollars) of assets, Brown was to say, according to extracts from a keynote speech to be given in London, setting out his vision for "enduring and sustainable growth." Brown was to outline details of initial sales that could raise three billion pounds, including the Channel Tunnel; the 33 percent stake in European uranium corsortium URENCO; the Tote bookmakers; the River Thames crossings at Dartford, east of London; and the Student Loans Company. The country is still in recession and has a forecast deficit this year of 175 billion pounds.

Areva will submit its application for the Eagle Rock uranium enrichment facility to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Tuesday afternoon, a company source said. The facility, which is to be built in Idaho, is similar in design to the plant now being built by Urenco subsidiary Louisiana Energy Services in New Mexico. NRC licensed the LES plant in June 2006 after a 30-month review. Areva officials have said they are hoping for a similar timetable for the agency's review of their application.

Uranium enricher Louisiana Energy Services on Friday said it plans to increase the capacity of its National Enrichment Facility in New Mexico to 5.9 million separative work units, a standard measure of enrichment, nearly double the original plan of 3 million SWU. The plant is currently under construction. In a press statement, LES, a Urenco subsidiary, said that with the expanded capacity, the plant would be able to provide the equivalent of about 50% of US enrichment demand. The total investment in the plant is now expected to be more than $3 billion, LES said.

"A ship carrying 650 tons of uranium waste arrived in Russia's second largest city, St. Petersburg, Greenpeace said on Monday. The dangerous cargo of uranium hexafluoride (UF6), which belongs to the French nuclear energy group Areva, was then loaded onto railway cars to be transported to the Siberian Chemical Combine in the Tomsk region, the statement added. The Russian vessel, the Kapitan Kuroptev arrived in St. Petersburg in the early hours of Monday. The ship had already been a source of controversy after a group of nature activists tried to stop it from entering the port in 2005 when it was carrying a similar cargo of spent nuclear fuel. According to international standards, however, uranium hexafluoride is not considered nuclear waste, and can be transformed into fuel to release energy for nuclear power stations. France's Areva and Britain's Urenco, a European consortium which supplies equipment to enrich uranium for the nuclear industry, has shipped some 140,000 tons of nuclear waste over the last 15 years to Russia."