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United States Enrichment Corporation
 
 
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The United States Enrichment Corporation, a subsidiary of USEC Inc. , is a corporation
Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
 that contracts with the United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy

The United States Department of Energy is a United States Cabinet-level department of the United States government of the United States responsible for Energy policy of the United States and nuclear safety....
 to produce enriched uranium
Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation....
 for use in nuclear power plants.

Energy Policy Act of 1992
Energy Policy Act of 1992

The Energy Policy Act is a United States government Act of Congress.It was passed by United States Congress and addressed energy efficiency, energy conservation and energy management , natural gas imports and exports , alternative fuels and requiring certain fleets to acquire alternative fuel vehicles, which are capable of operating on nonp...
, 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 an initial public offering
Initial public offering

Initial public offering , also referred to simply as a "public offering" or "flotation," is when a company issues common stock or Share to the public for the first time....
 of USEC stock.






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The United States Enrichment Corporation, a subsidiary of USEC Inc. , is a corporation
Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
 that contracts with the United States Department of Energy
United States Department of Energy

The United States Department of Energy is a United States Cabinet-level department of the United States government of the United States responsible for Energy policy of the United States and nuclear safety....
 to produce enriched uranium
Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation....
 for use in nuclear power plants.

History

The Energy Policy Act of 1992
Energy Policy Act of 1992

The Energy Policy Act is a United States government Act of Congress.It was passed by United States Congress and addressed energy efficiency, energy conservation and energy management , natural gas imports and exports , alternative fuels and requiring certain fleets to acquire alternative fuel vehicles, which are capable of operating on nonp...
, 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 an initial public offering
Initial public offering

Initial public offering , also referred to simply as a "public offering" or "flotation," is when a company issues common stock or Share to the public for the first time....
 of USEC stock. The U.S. government received about three billion dollars for USEC.

USEC had gaseous diffusion
Gaseous diffusion

Gaseous diffusion is a technology used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride, UF6, through Semipermeable membrane....
 plants at Piketon, Ohio
Piketon, Ohio

Piketon is a village #Ohio in Pike County, Ohio, Ohio, United States, along the Scioto River. The village is best known for the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant located there ....
 near Portsmouth
Portsmouth, Ohio

Portsmouth is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Scioto County, Ohio. The municipality is located on the northern banks of the Ohio River and east of the Scioto River in Southern Ohio....
. In May 2001, USEC ceased uranium enrichment operations in Piketon and consolidated operations in Paducah, Kentucky
Paducah, Kentucky

Paducah is the largest city in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase Region and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, Kentucky, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River....
. The following year, transfer and shipping operations were also consolidated at Paducah.

A demonstration gas centrifuge
Gas centrifuge

A gas centrifuge is a separating machine specifically developed to separate Uranium-235 from Uranium-238. The gas centrifuge relies on the principles of centripetal force accelerating molecules based upon mass....
 plant is being built at Piketon for initial commercial operation in 2009, and a full-size plant is planned there for operation in 2012. One advantage of a gas centrifuge plant is that it would consume far less electricity
Electricity

Electricity is a general term that encompasses a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena such as lightning and static electricity, but in addition, less familiar concepts such as the electromagnetic field and electromagnetic induction....
 than a gaseous diffusion plant.

At peak operation, the Paducah facility consumes about 3,000 megawatts
WATT

WATT is a radio station broadcasting a News radio-Talk radio-Sports radio format. Licensed to Cadillac, Michigan, it first began broadcasting in 1945....
 of electricity. Power for the Paducah gaseous diffusion plant comes from Tennessee Valley Authority
Tennessee Valley Authority

The Tennessee Valley Authority is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, Flood, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly impacted by the Great Depression....
, which operates five nuclear reactor
Nuclear reactor

A nuclear reactor is a device in which nuclear chain reactions are initiated, controlled, and sustained at a steady rate, as opposed to a nuclear bomb, in which the chain reaction occurs in a fraction of a second and is uncontrolled causing an explosion....
s itself and is restarting one more.

In November 1996 USEC signed an exclusive licence and development agreement for the application of SILEX
Silex Process

SILEX is an acronym for Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation , a technology developed in the 1990s for isotope separation to produce enriched uranium using lasers....
 technology to uranium enrichment with an Australian
Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
 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
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
 Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement, implemented under the Megatons to Megawatts Program
Megatons to Megawatts Program

The Megatons to Megawatts Program is the name given to the program that implemented the 1993 United States-Russianonproliferation agreement to convert high-enriched uranium taken from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into low-enriched-uranium for nuclear fuel....
.

See also

  • nuclear fuel cycle
    Nuclear fuel cycle

    The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the front end, which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the service period in which the fuel is used during reactor operation, and steps in the back end, which are ne...
  • nuclear power
    Nuclear power

    Nuclear power is any nuclear technology designed to extract usable energy from atomic nucleus via controlled nuclear reactions. The only method in use today is through nuclear fission, though other methods might one day include nuclear fusion and radioactive decay ....


External links

  • , Journal Science, March 30, 2007.