- United States Enrichment Corporation
Infobox_Company
company_name = USEC Inc
company_
company_type = Public (nyse|USU)
slogan =
foundation =1992
location =Bethesda, Maryland
key_people = John K. Welch, CEO & Chairman
num_employees = 2,677
industry = Basic Materials
products = Industrial Metals & Minerals
owner =
revenue =
homepage = [http://www.usec.com www.usec.com] |The United States Enrichment Corporation, a subsidiary of USEC Inc. (nyse|USU), is acorporation that contracts with theUnited States Department of Energy to produceenriched uranium for use innuclear power plant s.History
The
Energy Policy Act of 1992 , a U.S. federal law, created USEC to privatize uranium enrichment for civilian use, and in July 1993 USEC took over the facilities. The sale of USEC was completed on July 28, 1998 through aninitial public offering of USEC stock. The U.S. government received about three billion dollars for USEC.USEC had
gaseous diffusion plants atPiketon, Ohio near Portsmouth. In May 2001, USEC ceased uranium enrichment operations in Piketon and consolidated operations inPaducah, Kentucky . The following year, transfer and shipping operations were also consolidated at Paducah.A demonstration
gas centrifuge plant is being built at Piketon for initial commercial operation in 2009, and a full-size plant is planned there for operation in 2012. [http://www.wise-uranium.org/epusecc.html] One advantage of a gas centrifuge plant is that it would consume far lesselectricity than a gaseous diffusion plant.At peak operation, the Paducah facility consumes about 3,000 megawatts of electricity. Power for the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant comes from
Tennessee Valley Authority , which operates fivenuclear reactor s itself and is restarting one more.In November 1996 USEC signed an exclusive licence and development agreement for the application of SILEX technology to uranium enrichment with an Australian company, Silex Systems Limited. USEC backed out of the SILEX agreement in May 2003 in order to concentrate resources on the demonstration and deployment of its American Centrifuge program.
The Department of Energy remains responsible for clean-up of the sites of materials left there prior to 1993.
USEC is the executive agent in the U.S./
Russia Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement, implemented under theMegatons to Megawatts Program .ee also
*
nuclear fuel cycle
*nuclear power External links
* [http://www.usec.com/default.htm USEC]
* [http://www.usec.com/v2001_02/HTML/Facilities_PaducahHistory.asp Paducah plant history]
* [http://rapidshare.com/files/32615156/ScienceMarch2007.pdf.html Uranium Enrichment: Spinning a Nuclear Comeback] , Journal Science, March 30, 2007.References
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