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In recent years, nuclear power has been getting a second look. The increased attention in nuclear energy has been stimulated of late through changes in governmental policy (i.e., loan guarantees), public opinion on global warming, concerns over foreign oil dependence and industrial investment opportunities.

The upswing in planned construction of domestic and international nuclear power facilities will certainly provide important environmental benefits. The most obvious benefit being the large reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in comparison to coal or natural gas fired power plants. Also, President Barack Obama recently has announced a goal of putting 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2025. In order to realize the full environmental benefit of that growing fleet of electric vehicles, it also will be important that the electricity produced to power them be supplied by clean base load nuclear power.

Although nuclear energy production itself results in some of the lowest total carbon emissions compared to other energy production methods, critics of the industry are quick to point out two of nuclear’s major drawbacks, namely high cost of construction and high-level waste disposal. The nuclear industry counters the concern with high cost through plans to standardize design and carry out modular construction. The volume produced from decades of power production is quite small, and the interim storage measures used to contain and control this material have been – and will continue to be – adequate for another 100 years until a permanent solution is put in place.

Although debate is certain to continue on those issues, there is actually a potentially larger issue facing the nuclear industry – an issue that has not been adequately addressed, has seen little public attention, and yet may become the largest future issue facing the industry. That issue is the production of depleted uranium from the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

There is, however, a company planning to construct a facility in the United States that would not only solve this issue for the industry, it would do so in a manner that recovers valuable fluoride-bearing materials, produces important commercial products and saves energy in the process. That company is International Isotopes Inc. (INIS), and its process is called depleted uranium de-conversion and fluorine extraction.

Nuclear Fuel Enrichment

In order to make uranium fuel for use in a reactor, natural uranium is first mined from the earth and converted into uranium oxide, also called “yellow cake.” The yellow cake is then converted into uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) so that it can go through an isotopic enrichment process to put it into an enriched form suitable for use as reactor fuel. However, only a small portion of natural uranium is useful for reactor fuel. Once the UF6 goes through the enrichment process, only about 10 percent of it is usable. The remaining 90 percent of the uranium comes out in the form of depleted UF6 “tails”. While it is still possible to extract a small amount of additional useful uranium from the tails, most of the residual material has no commercial value.

Historically, nothing has really ever been done with these tails. The UF6 is a chemically reactive form of material and not suitable for disposal. So, the tails are simply pumped into single-walled carbon steel cylinders and stored in outdoor areas, unprotected from the elements, for decades. There is already 1.6 billion pounds of depleted UF6 tails currently being stored in the United States in so many cylinders that if they were to be lined up end-to-end, they would stretch for nearly 150 miles. As large as this U.S. “tails” stockpile sounds, it is actually small compared to numerous similar stockpiles of depleted tails being stored overseas. In fact, for the past 20 years or so, most of the uranium enrichment supply for U.S. power reactors has actually come from Russia. Although the United States has had the benefit of the nuclear power produced from this enriched material, the Russians have been left with most of the tails. It is estimated that more than 250 million pounds of tails are being generated each year in Russia and other foreign countries in stockpiles that create an increasing environmental challenge.

Increased Relevance

What makes the depleted uranium issue even more significant today is the fact that the agreement that has had the majority of uranium enrichment taking place in Russia is set to expire in 2013. In advance of that date, several commercial enrichment companies are planning to build new uranium enrichment capacity in the United States. As these new  facilities come on line, it is estimated that their operations will result in the production of as much as 85 million pounds of additional depleted uranium tails each year in the United States.

Fluorine Extraction Process

INIS is set to take advantage of this changing landscape in the nuclear industry. INIS exclusively holds the patents for a new process called the Fluorine Extraction Process (FEP), and FEP could change the fate of much of the depleted UF6 tails produced in the United States. The FEP process essentially separates the fluorine in the depleted tails, turning it into several fluoride gas products that can be profitably sold for important commercial processes. In the process, the uranium tails are converted into a chemically stable form conducive to safe long-term storage or disposal.

FEP’s Environmental Benefits

Because UF6 tails can be readily transported, INIS can construct a single central de-conversion and FEP facility to process tails produced anywhere in the United States. INIS has already selected a site for its facility in Lea County, N.M., a location within about 20 miles of the first new commercial uranium enrichment facility being constructed by URENCO USA. In fact, INIS already has a commercial contract in place with URENCO to provide this de-conversion service for a significant portion of the URENCO tails.

There are other environmental benefits to the INIS process. First, the INIS process is the only process that recycles and recovers the valuable fluorine atoms that are trapped in the tails inventory. Other de-conversion processes typically waste the fluorine and increase waste volumes produced through the process. Second, the products INIS produces are important to a variety of manufacturing processes including the production of components for alternative energy devises. Third, since the INIS process is simply extracting fluorine from the uranium materials, they can produce these products for just a fraction of the energy required to produce them by conventional methods. It is estimated that the INS plant will save more than 6 million pounds of CO2 emissions each year with just the relatively small volumes of their initial fluoride production.

Jim Thomas is president of Advanced Process Technology Systems LLC and is the principal management consultant for International Isotopes. For more information, visit www.intisoid.com.