Alert from Beyond Nuclear: “The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is poised to forego a more comprehensive National Environmental Policy Act review of American Centrifuge Plant/Centrus’s scheme to generate High Assay Low Enriched Uranium in Portsmouth, OH, containing up to nearly 20% Uranium-235, considered weapons-grade. This HALEU “demonstration” is intended for use in so-called Small Modular Reactors or other “advanced” designs, by both the military and commercial nuclear power industry, both domestically and overseas. However, Tom Clements of Savannah River Site Watch alerted Ohio Nuclear Free Network legal counsel Terry Lodge of Toledo, who, along with 104 endorsing groups, has demanded NRC undertake a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement, to address the scheme’s grave proliferation, security, safety, health, and environmental risks.
See group letter to the NRC calling for preparation of a Programmatic EIS and a nuclear proliferation impact assessment on the “Centrus High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium Demonstration Project”: https://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/356082/28422161/1617230576573/3+30+21+Centrus+EIS+demand+COMPLET-1.pdf?token=F%2FWrr1dZ7kwWhDmKa%2F1pKDsoVec%3D
See emails between SRS Watch and the NRC, concerning preparation in secrecy and with no public comment of an Environmental Assessment (EA): https://srswatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Emails-between-Tom-Clements-and-NRC-on-Centrus-March-2021.pdf
Letter linked on Beyond Nuclear website, with long list of sign-on groups: http://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclear-proliferation/2021/3/25/urgent-organizational-sign-on-letter-to-nrc-to-oppose-haleu.html
image above: DOE HALEU graphic – https://www.energy.gov/ne/downloads/infographic-what-high-assay-low-enriched-uranium-haleu