Envirocare of Utah purchased the
Connecticut-based Scientech D&D division in October 2005. On February 2, 2006, Envirocare announced the $90 million purchase of BNG America, a subsidiary of
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) based in
Virginia. Envirocare of Utah was renamed EnergySolutions, with corporate headquarters in
Salt Lake City, Utah. On February 7, 2006, EnergySolutions announced it would buy
Maryland-based Duratek, a
publicly traded company, for $396 million in an all-cash deal. The
leveraged buyout was financed by banks led by
Citigroup, effectively taking the company private. After the acquisitions, EnergySolutions had 2,500 employees in 40
states with an annual revenue of $280 million. EnergySolutions owns two of the nation's four commercial low-level nuclear-waste repositories, its primary competitor,
Waste Control Specialists, built a fourth repository in Texas.
Envirocare Envirocare of Utah, Inc. (Envirocare) buried Class A
low level radioactive waste (LLRW) in an engineered
landfill. It began operations in 1990 in
Clive, Utah. Envirocare was founded by Iranian immigrant Khosrow Semnani in 1988. Semnani served as president of the company until May 1997, when Envirocare's largest customer—the
Department of Energy—requested that he step down in the wake of a bribery scandal. In mid-December 2004, Semnani sold Envirocare for an undisclosed sum. Steve Creamer became the company's new CEO. The deal was financed by private equity firms, led by
Lindsay Goldberg & Bessemer of New York, Creamer Investments, and Peterson Partners both of Salt Lake City. Envirocare management promised to drop its plans to bury hotter class B and C nuclear waste in Utah in deference to growing political opposition to the company, which was poised to ban the waste. Envirocare subsequently made the acquisitions and became EnergySolutions.
Duratek Based in
Columbia, Maryland, Duratek was founded in 1983. In 1990, the company merged with General Technical Services (GTS); the resulting company was known as
GTS Duratek. That year, the company formed a joint venture with another firm — Chem-Nuclear Systems, Inc. — to build a commercial
vitrification system. In 1997, GTS Duratek acquired the
Scientific Ecology Group (SEG). In 2000, the company purchased the nuclear services business arm of
Waste Management Inc. One year later, the company announced that it was dropping GTS from its name, and was once again known as
Duratek. Duratek was purchased by EnergySolutions at a 25.7% premium over the February 7, 2006 stock price when the merger was announced. The sale included Magnox Electric Limited (MEL), a wholly owned subsidiary of RSMC, which holds the contracts and licences to operate ten nuclear reactor sites in the UK on behalf of the
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). Through the acquisition, the company took over operational and management responsibilities of several
Magnox atomic plants from British Nuclear Fuels plc. In 2009 it attempted to bring 20,000 tons of waste from Italy's shuttered nuclear power program through the ports of either Charleston, South Carolina, or New Orleans. After processing in Tennessee, about 1,600 tons would be disposed of in Utah. The importation attempt was eventually abandoned. EnergySolutions sought permission in 2011 from the State of Utah for its "Semprasafe" process to blend, or dilute, the currently allowed Class A low-level radioactive waste with more radioactive Class B and Class C wastes until it just meets the Class A waste levels its license allows per container at its Clive disposal site. Some estimates projected that this could increase Energy Solutions' Utah site total of 7,450
curies of radiation per annum (2010), to an additional 19,184 to 28,470 curies each year. This would have made Utah, after Texas, the second state in the US to allow the importation of Class B and C radioactive wastes. This sale was blocked by the
DOJ for breaching anti-trust law. In November 2015, EnergySolutions sold its Projects, Products and Technology division to
WS Atkins plc for $318 million.
Energy Capital Partners is the seller. The deal includes EnergySolutions’ North American government, Europe, and Asia businesses, and about 650 employees. EnergySolutions will retain its logistics, processing, and disposal (“LP&D”) business, its reactor decommissioning business, including current projects at
Zion, Illinois and
La Crosse, Wisconsin, and its North American utility services. Most of the radioactive waste from the decommissioning of the
San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is going to the Energy Solutions facility in Clive, Utah, and is being transported by rail. ==References==