Interest in Private Uranium Enrichment Resurfaces

Abstract

Private enterprise once again has its eyes on uranium enrichment. Since its inception, enriching uranium in the U.S. into fuel-grade material has been—and still is—a government monopoly. Past attempts to bring private industry into the uranium enrichment business failed. But now, John W. LaFond, executive vice president of American Enrichment Co. (AEC), thinks the time and circumstances are right. AEC, a joint venture that includes Boeing, E. F. Hutton, and Ebasco, an engineering-construction company, was formed last year specifically to make a pitch for private uranium enrichment. Speaking at the recent annual conference of the Atomic Industrial Forum in Washington, D.C., LaFond said that AEC has arrived at an almost perfect juxtaposition of astrological privatization signs. He believes that, since the Department of Energy has abandoned and written off its proposed gas centrifuge enrichment plant at Portsmouth, Ohio, barriers to private entry into the business have been significantly lowered. In additi...