New York Times: The only US company currently performing uranium enrichment, USEC, may soon go bankrupt. Not only have its applications for some $2 billion in loan guarantees been repeatedly turned down by the federal government, but it must come up with an additional $2 billion to complete construction of its American Centrifuge project. Centrifuge technology has been replacing the gaseous diffusion process used since the days of the Manhattan Project. Compared with the US, Europe and Russia have been racing ahead with the building of centrifuges. A German-Dutch-British consortium, Urenco, which began uranium production in the US in 2010, has now almost doubled its size.
