French company to build uranium plant in Idaho

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – Areva SA has won a federal license to build and operate a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant near Idaho Falls, a key step in the French company’s plans to expand production of nuclear fuel in the United States.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s license for Areva’s Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility authorizes the company to enrich uranium for use in the manufacture of nuclear fuel for commercial reactors. Areva plans to begin construction in 2012.

The company already has uranium enrichment facilities in France and seeks to add this new U.S. plant by 2014, to help bolster the domestic nuclear fuel supply that could shrink once an agreement with Russia to convert weapons-grade uranium to low-enriched uranium expires in 2013.