Oak Ridge Today

USEC bankruptcy filing won’t affect daily operations in Oak Ridge, company says

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Centrifuge Machine Manufacturing

In Oak Ridge, USEC workers take part in centrifuge operations, testing, and manufacturing for the American Centrifuge Project. (Photos courtesy USEC)

The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing and financial restructuring plan that USEC Inc. announced last week will not affect daily operations in Oak Ridge or the American Centrifuge Project, a company spokesman said Monday.

The bankruptcy filing and financial plan are a restructuring of the balance sheet of the parent company, USEC Inc., spokesman Paul Jacobson said. He said the company is trying to strengthen its balance sheet and be a stronger sponsor of the American Centrifuge Project, a “next-generation” U.S. uranium enrichment technology. USEC Inc. is a global energy company that is a leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.

The company currently has 304 people working on the centrifuge program in Tennessee. In Oak Ridge, workers take part in centrifuge operations, testing, and manufacturing.

“This plan for restructuring our debt and equity will have no effect on our employees, who will continue to receive paychecks and benefits in the ordinary course,” Jacobson said. “As we have communicated to our employees previously, some employees will be impacted by several ongoing initiatives that are unrelated to the restructuring.” [Read more…]

Final milestone in U.S.-Russian partnership converting nuclear warheads into fuel

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Ernest Moniz

Ernest Moniz

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Russia has converted 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium—the equivalent of 20,000 nuclear warheads—and the resulting low enriched uranium, or LEU, has been delivered to the United States, fabricated into nuclear fuel, and used in nuclear power plants to generate nearly 10 percent of all U.S. electricity for the past 15 years, federal officials said.

That’s roughly half of all commercial nuclear energy produced domestically during that period, a U.S. Department of Energy press release said.

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced the final LEU shipment on Thursday.

The LEU was derived from Russian weapons-origin highly enriched uranium, or HEU, under the 1993 U.S.-Russia HEU Purchase Agreement, commonly known as the Megatons to Megawatts Program, the press release said. [Read more…]

‘Pandora’s Promise’ comes to Knoxville; panel discussion planned Saturday

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“Pandora’s Promise,” a new film about environmentalists’ support of nuclear energy as a solution to global climate change, will be shown in a limited Knoxville engagement this week, starting today (Friday, July 19) and ending Thursday, a media advisory said.

A panel discussion at 8:45 p.m. Saturday will include representatives of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USEC, and the University of Tennessee. It will follow the 7 p.m. showing of the film. [Read more…]