A trucking company accidentally sent a shipment of diluted weapons-grade uranium to a North Carolina nuclear plant instead of its intended destination in Kentucky.
The mix-up did not pose a risk, Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Wednesday. "It was received at a facility authorized to take it," agency spokesman Roger Hannah said. He declined to speculate on what would have happened, if anything, if the six tons of blended Russian uranium had been delivered to a facility not able to safely accept it.
The NRC is investigating how Transport Logistics International sent the load on Dec. 19 to Global Nuclear Fuel LLC in Wilmington, NC. along with a similarly numbered load from a dock in Norfolk, VA.
The Paducah, KY company that operates the plant, USEC, bought $7.5 billion worth of uranium from Russia which it enriches for use as fuel for nuclear power plants.