Levi Hill
Hobbs News-Sun
More than a decade after International Isotopes first tried to locate a nuclear tails deconversion facility in Lea County, another company is picking up the baton and carrying the project forward.
Sept. 24 at the regular Lea County Commission meeting, Nano Nuclear representatives approached the county asking for an extension on a land option near Xcel’s Cunningham Power Station west of Hobbs so it could push the project forward.
“As a bit of background, this was approved about 15 years ago,” said Nano Nuclear CEO James Walker. “Urenco operates here already. They produce tails. This was originally them in partnership with Isotopes to process these tails. Urenco pulled out some years ago and Isotopes could not secure the funds to keep the project going.”
When Urenco USA processes raw uranium into enriched uranium, the remaining raw stock is known as “tails” or “tailings.” Originally, Urenco had planned to work with a company to deconvert the tails for disposal, but advanced technologies have allowed Urenco to extract additional uranium hexafluoride and other valuable elements from once-processed tailings.
Idaho-based International Isotopes had planned to deconvert tails for Urenco and further extract valuable fluoride gases from them. Now Nano Nuclear wants to not only deconvert tails, but also be another step in the fuel cycle, turning enriched uranium into nuclear reactor fuel.
“This facility is not an isotope facility, this is a deconversion facility,” Walker said. “Urenco does enrichment and it is in the form of a gas. We are looking at taking the fresh fuel and converting it into a final fuel form and the deconversion to handle the waste. We have an interest in doing both. We would start doing the waste and later the fuel conversion.”
Walker said the International Isotopes facility, which received Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval nearly a decade ago, would have been the only privately-licensed deconversion site in the country. That means a new facility built in Lea would be the first such commercial US facility.
“We want to build that deconversion facility to process the tailings of Urenco and other groups as well and the other part is interest in taking fresh fuel and creating that final fuel form. Everything Urenco produces goes out of state, but it would be great if it could be done in the state,” Walker said. “It will mean a lot of jobs. Permanent jobs. With the first facility, 200 jobs, when we increase that (to fuel conversion), it is not a huge plant — 150 jobs for fresh fuel. 400 jobs total when both phases are completed.”
Walker said Nano Nuclear needs a guarantee from the county the site remains available to them until the project can move forward with financing and NRC review, since work has stalled for a decade.
“There was a lot of work put into this. Four years went into getting this project designed and to be launched. It is a great project. It is not a nuclear facility, it is a chemical plant. That is how it is judged,” he said, adding the NRC has oversight because the material is a nuclear element, but the facility operates like a chemical plant and not a nuclear plant. Still it would be required to meet NRC safety and security standards.
“You could do it anywhere,” Walker said of the conversion plant. “The reason to do it here is because all the work that has been done. You would lose $20 million and four years of work to go somewhere else.”
Lea County Commissioner DeeAnn Kimbro asked about the facility’s water usage in light of concerns related to a data center project eying Lea.
Marilyn Diaz, Director of Fuel Facilities Operations for Nano Nuclear, said the facility’s 2012 license was for less than 10,000 gallons per day use.
“We will be recirculating the water,” Diaz said. “We will provide updates and work with the county on that. There are more steps to come.”
Lea County Manager Corey Needham said the county need only approve a letter of intent for now that would keep negotiations for the purchase of the 640-acre site on the table for the project until further due diligence is completed.
“We will continue conversations with his company and operate in good faith,” he said.
Attendees primarily there for data center discussions also posed questions about water usage, possible chemical discharge into the water table, transport of nuclear material through Hobbs from Urenco to the Nano site.
Shahe Bagerdjian CEO of International Isotopes, said the company is still involved in the project, but only as a shareholder.
“Urenco began assessment in 2003. We took over in 2009,” Bagerdjian said. “We were assessed by US Army Corps of Engineers. We have various covenants designed to ensure chemicals do not reach the water table.”
The commission voted unanimously to approve the letter of intent and continue discussions with Nano Nuclear on the purchase of the site and the development of the project.
