Source:
New York TimesBy MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: May 29, 2007
WASHINGTON, May 28 — The government accumulated vast quantities of uranium when prices were very low and no one else wanted it. But now that uranium prices have increased tenfold, the government has a precious commodity — and some tough questions — on its hands.
Furious lobbying has broken out over who should end up with the prize, which will eventually end up as nuclear reactor fuel after being run through an enrichment plant. And though the material’s market value has been estimated at $750 million to $3 billion, one of the companies most vocal in making its case says it deserves the uranium — without paying a cent for it.
Up for grabs is 25 million kilograms of uranium hexafluoride that was incompletely processed at government enrichment plants when prices were very low. The enrichment plants separate uranium 235, a rare type that splits easily, in bombs or reactors, from uranium 238, which does not. When the price of natural uranium was very low, the government, in a cost-saving move, decided to skim off just the uranium 235 that was easiest to obtain.
“In the old days, they left a lot of good stuff behind,” said Julian Steyn, a uranium expert at Energy Resources International, a consulting firm in Washington.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/washington/29nuke.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin