"Kentucky made a competitive offer, but USEC ultimately decided Ohio was a better fit," Gov. How that compared with the Bluegrass State's offer, however, remains unknown. ![]() One "economic benefit" is Ohio's $125-million incentive package of tax breaks, outright grants and low-interest loans. ![]() "The Ohio proposal," said Timbers, "offered assurances concerning seismic conditions," as well as "the right mix of economic benefits, existing infrastructure and scheduling advantages." That made building the new plant in Kentucky a far more expensive option. Two earthquake fault lines, the New Madrid and the Wabash Valley, run near Paducah, Timbers explained. Building an atomic-vapor plant, USEC explained, would take too much time and money, with too little profit.ĭeciding where to introduce centrifuge technology had a lot to do with site-related cost and safety concerns. It still owns both sites and leases them to USEC.īy 1999, atomic-vapor technology had also been abandoned. The agency, however, kept a finger in the nuclear-energy pie. That prompted the DOE to sell both its plants to USEC in 1998. Instead, the agency pursued another technology, atomic-vapor laser isotope separation. The DOE briefly tested its centrifuge operation, then altogether abandoned it in 1985. But that big investment barely registered in reality. By the early 1980s, the DOE had completed most of the $4.4-billion project. In 1976, the federal agency selected the south Ohio site for its first centrifuge plant. It had built them in the early 1950s to produce enriched uranium for atom bombs. of Energy (DOE) still owned and operated both the Piketon and Paducah plants. Ohio's centrifuge infrastructure dates back to the 1970s. "The Piketon site provides us with the best opportunity to bring the American Centrifuge plant online quickly and efficiently," he said. That proved a deciding factor, Timbers said. Significantly, the Piketon operation already has substantial centrifuge infrastructure in place. And that, in turn, signals the eventual closing of the 1,200-employee Paducah plant. Now, though, the mothballed Piketon plant is reopening. ![]() Some 900 workers were laid off, and the Ohio production was shifted to USEC's other plant in Paducah, Ky. But cost pressures prompted the facility's shutdown in 2001. Piketon was once home to a working uranium enrichment plant for USEC, the only U.S.-based producer of enriched uranium. The "new deal," though, is in some ways old: "Nick" Timbers said at the Piketon press conference. "The new decade of the American Centrifuge will bring Piketon a new deal - cutting-edge technology, world leadership in uranium enrichment and a new period of opportunities for us to work together," USEC President & CEO William H. commercial operation utilizing centrifuge technology. (Pictured: the Piketon operation's control center (left) and its steam plant control facility.)ĭubbed "the American Centrifuge," the Piketon project will be the first-ever U.S. The Piketon plant had been closed since 2001.
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