Mission Statement:

The Paducah Uranium Plant Asset Utilization (PUPAU) Task Force is designed to identify assets on-site at the PGDP that could be reused to benefit both the plant workforce and community.  Such assets could include buildings, land, equipment, infrastructure, nickel ingots, aluminum ingots, scrap ferrous metals, and depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders.

Plant Key Facts:

Membership of Task Force:

Co-chaired by McCracken County Judge Executive and Paducah Mayor, the task force consists of Jim Zumwalt, Paducah City Manager, Doug Harnice, Deputy Judge Executive, Jimmie Hodges, former Department of Energy (DOE) Site Manager; Howard Pulley, former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) General Manager; Steve Penrod, current United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) General Manager; Charlie Martin, Director Field Services USEC; Jennifer Beck-Walker, Executive Director, Purchase Area Development Office; Ray Dailey, Director of Environmental Affairs, New Page; Clyde Elrod, Private Sector; Rob Ervin, President of the USW Local 550; and Nancy Mitchell, TVA.

Program Accomplishments:

• Fluorine Cells - an agreement was reached with TOCXO Inc, for services rendered to obtain the excess fluorine cells on site at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant  (PGDP) in Paducah, Kentucky. This agreement saved the Department of Energy (DOE) approximately $2.5 million in cleanup costs.
• Cold Traps - PACRO is in discussions with Honeywell, Inc. to clean, sell, and remove excess Cold Traps from the PGDP site. This agreement could save DOE between $2.5 and $5 million dollars in cleanup costs.

Downloads:

• Paducah Uranium Plant Asset Utilization Task Force Presentation
• Intelligent Energy Choices for Kentucky's Future

Helpful External Links:

Some of the links on this site may lead to non-PADD/PACRO agencies or entities.  If you choose to follow this link, you will be leaving the PADD website and entering an external site. The external site may be of some use or interest to you and is being provided to further your endeavors.  However, the PADD/PACRO has no control over the external site. Contents of a non-PADD/PACRO site may change without warning.

• Paducah.ky.gov - PUPAU Task Force
• Paducah Site Cleanup

Existing Operational Activities:

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP) is a vital component of Kentucky’s economy and has supported the nation’s national security and energy independence goals for more than fifty years.

Any plan to re-enrich the depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) stored at the Paducah site must, as a pre-condition, require that the work be conducted at Paducah. Any tails re-enrichment plan should extend the employment of the 1,100 employees at the PGDP for several years beyond the projected closure date.

The Task Force supports Congressman Ed Whitfield’s bill, proposed last fall, that DOE would enter into a sole-source contract with the existing operator to re-enrich the tails at Paducah prior to sale and/or disposition.

Focus:

The Task Force will concentrate on three areas of asset utilization for the facility:

• Optimization of the existing operational, cleanup, and recreational activities at the site.
• Explore and promote new missions, for the site, both short and long term that will fully utilize site assets.
• Mobilize at the national, state, and community level support for the task force’s strategic and tactical recommendations.

Clean Up:

To assist in replacing the loss of these 1,100 jobs, it is imperative that this site be prepared for the safe use by future businesses and that efforts be continued to protect surrounding residents from the adverse effects of the facility’s legacy wastes.

• The Task Force supports the continued allocation of adequate funding in FY 2009 for cleanup.  For FY 2008 Paducah took a $20 million reduction in clean up funds in the President’s $96 million budget proposal. The Task Force supports the work the Congressional Delegation in fighting to restore the FY2008 Cleanup funds for the Paducah site, especially Senator McConnell’s efforts throughout the process.
• For more than fifty years, Paducah has supported operations and now cleanup of the site. The community has stored the by-products of that cleanup, such as the 9700 tons of volumetrically contaminated nickel on site for decades. Reclamation of the nickel will bring more jobs to the area in the face of layoffs at the Paducah plant.
• The Task Force supports the efforts of the DOE solicitation for the deposition of the nickel ingots at Paducah and the local Citizen’s Advisory Board’s (CAB) position that allows DOE to provide land/facilities on the DOE PGDP reservation for processing the nickel to a useful final product form.
• If this position is determined not viable by DOE, the Task Force requests an investment of some reciprocal value in return for the removal of this community resource and the jobs created by the reclamation of this resource at another location.

Explore New Missions:

• One step of many in achieving energy independence is increasing the portion of the United State’s electric power that comes from nuclear power plants above the current 20 percent.
• The core GNEP concept remains valid; when a used fuel rod is removed from a nuclear power plant, we only get energy from less than 5% of the fuel in nuclear fuel and recycling can get the energy from the remaining 95% rather than throwing that energy away.
• This issue is particularly pertinent to Paducah, since the PGDP was on the short list of proposed sites for the reprocessing facility. Setting aside the potential benefits for Paducah, the United States must increase its capacity for nuclear power production, including reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. That should be part of a broader energy strategy that also includes increasing domestic oil production, clean coal technologies, alternative energy sources and conservation  to wean the country off foreign oil.
• France and other countries that are already recycling uranium from nuclear fuel rods have demonstrated that recycling plants have positive economics and can be operated safely.
• The Federally owned land at the PGDP and the plant’s trained workforce make Paducah/McCracken County an attractive site for a nuclear power plant or a fuel rod recycling plant.
• The impact of having a multi-billion dollar fuel rod recycling plant which could replace the PGDP when it is closed would be important to the community.