Idaho Examiner: Idaho Is #1 With AREVA"Common Sense News"

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Idaho Is #1 With AREVA

Posted on: May 09, 2008

By: Senator Larry Craig

Idaho is celebrating the news that AREVA, the global supplier of technology, services, and products related to the generation of clean nuclear power, selected Bonneville County this week as the home of its first U.S. uranium enrichment plant.

Over the past year, officials of the French-based company traveled around the United States, surveying at least 200 potential sites for AREVA’s $2 billion plant. AREVA CEO Mike McMurphy visited with me at the start of that long search, even before his company’s board of directors had approved the plant’s construction. Our first meeting gave me an opportunity to highlight Idaho’s interest and suitability for the project and to relate to him our State’s long history with nuclear power, a history dating back to 1949 and the creation of what we now know as the Idaho National Laboratory.

Within weeks of that first meeting I received word that AREVA’s board had green lighted building its first enrichment plant in the U.S., and the company asked for my assistance in finding potential sites in Idaho.

AREVA set an aggressive schedule for selecting a site, so we engaged quickly to enlist the help of the Idaho Department of Commerce. Between last June and this past March we found the Bonneville County site and then asked our State Legislators to reassess our economic incentives since Idaho was competing with four other States to land this project. Our Legislators demonstrated Idaho’s commitment to clean energy by acting swiftly. As a result, we now have an economic platform that has helped attract AREVA and $5 billion of investment in the local economy of Southeastern Idaho over the next 30 years.

Now that AREVA has selected Idaho, the real work begins. I will be looking for ways to assist our new neighbors as the Idaho enrichment project goes forward. One area in which I and the Congressional delegation can help is to ensure that the Department of Energy’s Loan Guarantee program actually works as envisioned in the 2005 Energy Policy Act, should AREVA choose to use the loan guarantees to assist in the Idaho plant’s financing. Its enrichment plant is eligible for the guarantees because it will provide zero emitting nuclear fuel for our nation’s reactor fleet. I also will be working with my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Pete Domenici, to protect the growing U.S. enrichment industry from cheap imports from Russia. Pete has a similar enrichment project under construction in his State that is owned by Louisiana Energy Services, and we will be looking out for our new neighbors.

AREVA’s Idaho enrichment plant is a very welcome addition to our State’s nuclear portfolio. Hopefully it is just the first of many new nuclear projects we will explore together as we continue to expand Idaho’s commitment to clean power generation.