Areva plans to build $2 billion uranium plant in Idaho

By JOHN MILLER
Associated Press
updated 10:22 a.m. MT, Tues., May. 6, 2008

BOISE, Idaho - French-owned energy services company Areva NC Inc. will build a $2 billion (euro1.29 billion) uranium enrichment facility in the U.S., where nuclear power is increasingly viewed as vital in the support of its economic growth.

The plant will be built on a site near the Idaho National Laboratory in the eastern state city of Idaho Falls, where scientists have done research into nuclear energy since the 1940s, the company said Tuesday.

A late-session push in the Idaho Legislature to extend a sales tax exemption for production equipment that handles nuclear fuel and to cap property tax valuations at the plant to $400 million (euro257.6 million) helped convince the company to select Idaho.

Areva plans to build the plant by 2014. A program in which Russia has been converting weapons-grade uranium to uranium suitable for use in electricity-producing reactors and selling it to an Areva rival expires in 2013.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24483662

they didn't come here due to a lack of workers

... the price of uranium is going down.

http://www.uxc.com/review/uxc_Prices.aspx

Damn. Down another $2 in the last week.
I shoulda invested in cadmium futures!

--p!