Plan Would Extend Life of Gaseous Diffusion Plant

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) - There's an effort to extend the life of the eleven-hundred employee Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Congressional leaders are being asked to require the U-S Department of Energy to transfer control of spent uranium to the global energy company U-SEC.

Paducah Mayor Bill Paxton says spent uranium in tens of thousands of cylinders at the plant and at a closed sister plant in Piketon, Ohio, is worth about three (b) billion dollars. He says that's based on the soaring price of the low-level radioactive metal.

Paxton adds that transferring some of the material to U-SEC to be re-enriched for use in nuclear power plants could extend the life of the Paducah factory by two to ten years. Paxton says the cylinders belong to Paducah. He says they've been sitting in the community for the past 50 years and nobody wanted them. Paxton says now that uranium prices have shot up, they're a hot item and D-O-E officials) want to do something else with them.

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