US panel approves NC uranium enrichment plant

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license to General Electric-Hitachi Global Laser Enrichment LLC to build and operate a uranium enrichment plant near Wilmington deploying the laser technology instead of costlier centrifuges.

Nuclear weapons control advocates fear that allowing companies to use the cheaper and easier technology could increase the risk it falls into the wrong hands.

"We think the approval of the license was done without due consideration of proliferation," said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist in the global security program of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We're already grappling with how to cope with Iran's nuclear enrichment capability" and the laser technology "could make the problem of global proliferation intractable and uncontrollable."

GE Hitachi said it hasn't yet decided whether the project will be profitable enough to launch construction of the $1 billion plant. Part of the evaluation will be weighing whether markets for enriched uranium will hold for years into the future, spokesman Christopher White said.

But the company assured its hold on the classified technology proposed by the Australian company Silex Systems is secure.

"The company has worked with the NRC, the U.S. departments of State and Energy and independent non-proliferation experts for several years to ensure the security of this technology and has met — and in many cases exceeded — all regulations pertaining to safeguarding this technology," GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy said in a statement.