AREVA Rumors

Rumors and doomsaying about the cancellation of AREVA’s $3.2 billion uranium enrichment plant to be built west of Idaho Falls have certainly been monnaie courant on the complex lately.

Just yesterday on the bus I heard that the company had all but cancelled plans to build the plant, given the tsunami-induced disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, and that folks hired to work for the company in Idaho were being laid off because the bottom had dropped out of the future of nuclear power.

Not so, according to this story from the Idaho Statesman.

Odd that this is the first news story I’ve seen on the rumors – effectively dispelling them – and odder still that it didn’t come from a local media outlet. Oh well. Dan Yurman over at Idaho Samizdat covered this situation adequately well on April 24, having this to say:

Total U.S. demand in 2012 will be about 13 million SWU. Areva's share with a completed plant at Eagle Rock will be about 25% of that number. Both Areva and Urenco have filed with the NRC to double their production capacity by 2018.

So if anyone is running rumors up the flag pole about the firm skipping town, you really don't have to pay attention.

His subhead, of course, says it all: “Companies building multi-billion dollar facilities don’t do things on whims.”

AREVA itself is still pushing the green button on the project.