The private entity USEC, Inc. put about $2.5 billion, much of it taxpayer money, into a never-completed centrifuge uranium enrichment facility. Citizen interventions to stop its licensing were rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Of 11,500 centrifuges planned, 120 were completed. Six centrifuges crashed in 2011, one spewing contents. DOE gave USEC hundreds of millions toward the facility after USEC’s stock became junk rated. USEC declared bankruptcy in 2014. DOE took over plant management, ending its funding in 2015.   

HALEU ALERT! Out of USEC’s ashes emerged Centrus, LLC. In 2019, DOE gave Centrus a $115-million, no-bid contract for a pilot plant to produce High Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU). At 19.75% U-235, HALEU is weapons usable and easily enriched to bomb grade – a nuclear weapons proliferation risk.  In 2022 DOE gave Centrus a contract for $150 million more – a public subsidy for a private firm. The Ohio Nuclear Free Network (ONFN) has challenged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of the new American Centrifuge facility without doing the required Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). See ONFN’s flier (PORTS) and HALEU for Nuclear Weapons.