Idaho in talks for nuclear plant
BOISE – Areva Inc., a French government-controlled nuclear energy company, is in talks with officials in Idaho and other states over a planned $2 billion uranium enrichment facility that by 2014 could supply fuel to commercial nuclear power plants.
Areva recently hired Erika Malmen, wife of Gov. Butch Otter’s former chief of staff, Jeff Malmen, to lobby Otter and state legislators, according to documents obtained from the Idaho secretary of state by the Associated Press.
Lawmakers said they’ve been drafting legislation to provide hundreds of millions in tax incentives to help persuade the company to build a plant near the Idaho National Laboratory nuclear reservation near Idaho Falls.
Areva, whose U.S. operations are based in Bethesda, Md., has narrowed its list of places to build the plant to five states, spokeswoman Laurence Pernot said Wednesday. She declined to say if Idaho was on the short list and wouldn’t disclose the other locations, but said a final announcement is due “in the coming weeks.”
The company already has a uranium enrichment facility in France and is currently building another $3 billion plant in its home country. Areva plans to add this new U.S. plant by 2014, to help compensate for a U.S. nuclear fuel supply that could shrink once a program in which Russia has been converting weapons-grade uranium to low-enriched uranium and selling it to an Areva rival expires in 2013.
“This demonstrates a real need for additional domestic capacity,” Pernot said. “Areva is … committed to fueling the nuclear renaissance.”
Idaho has a long history of involvement in nuclear research at the Idaho National Laboratory, where reactor tests have been conducted since 1949.
Rep. Dennis Lake, R-Blackfoot, said the company has narrowed its search in Idaho to locations in Bonneville County. Lake has been working with Idaho Falls leaders on a package of tax breaks to introduce to the Legislature to help lure the plant. The legislation hasn’t yet been made public.
Otter spokesman Jon Hanian said Erika Malmen met with the governor’s aides as well as staff from the Idaho Department of Commerce on behalf of Areva on at least three occasions.
She registered as a lobbyist this month.
Hanian said Jeff Malmen had left the governor’s office for a separate lobbying job at Idaho Power Co. by the time his wife began selling the Areva proposal to her husband’s former boss. Jeff Malmen announced his resignation Nov. 2.
Neither Malmen returned a phone call seeking comment.
Idaho officials told Areva they supported legislative changes to “stay in the race” to win the facility over other states, Pernot said.
The 104 nuclear power plants operating in the United States now get the lion’s share of their uranium from other countries, including Russia. As a result, Areva and others are targeting this country for expansion.
USEC Inc., also of Bethesda, Md., already operates an enrichment facility in Paducah, Ky., and is building a centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio. Another company, LES, made up of European-based Urenco, British Nuclear Fuels and minor U.S. partners, plans to complete a plant in New Mexico in 2008.
Areva’s project would be a smaller version of its Georges Besse II centrifuge enrichment facility now under construction in France, Pernot said. The facility would be capable of producing enough enriched uranium to supply nearly a quarter of existing U.S. commercial nuclear power needs, Pernot said, adding the plant would start producing uranium in 2014, but wouldn’t be at full capacity until 2019.
An Idaho nuclear watchdog group, the Snake River Alliance, said it was surprised to learn of the Areva proposal. Communities in Southern Idaho that are being considered for such an enrichment plant deserve to be informed by their lawmakers, not kept in the dark and prevented from participating in discussions, said Andrea Shipley, alliance director.
“A U.S. centrifuge uranium enrichment plant is a recipe for Idaho to handle even more uranium than we already do,” Shipley said. “No matter what, Idaho will have to deal with the waste, and the profits will go to Areva.”
In addition to Areva, Idaho has been the subject of significant interest from other nuclear companies.
Last week, billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Nuclear Energy ended its pursuit of a nuclear energy plant in southwestern Idaho, saying the project wasn’t economically viable. Another company, Alternate Energy Holdings, has said it wants to build a nuclear power plant on 4,000 acres in Owyhee County near Bruneau, about 65 miles southeast of Boise.