A terminated uranium enrichment demonstration program at the American Centrifuge Plant near Piketon is back in the news.
The Columbus Dispatch reports, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry told Senator Rob Portman he is re-evaluating the Obama administration’s 2015 decision to end paying for the domestic pilot project at the 'A Plant.' This was in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing last week on the president’s 2019 budget request.
“I think my commitment to bringing the civil nuclear program back to one of stability and, frankly, to lead the world is pretty much on display,” Perry told Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, during a Senate hearing. “There has been, for whatever reason, I’m not going to call it an anti-nuclear mentality, but the civil nuclear business has been left by the wayside.”
Portman had visited the plant last month and said he had secured a commitment to clean up the existing landfills and plumes.