PIKETON, Ohio — Centrus Energy is quietly operating the most sensitive uranium enrichment project in the country, producing nuclear fuel just shy of weapons-grade at its Piketon facility. But beneath the banner of energy innovation lies a veil of secrecy—one that’s become nearly impenetrable.
A newly released FOIA response to the Ohio Atomic Press reveals that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has confirmed multiple security incidents in 2025 across Centrus sites, including its HALEU demonstration plant in Piketon, a site in Oak Ridge, and corporate headquarters in Bethesda. These reports were submitted under federal law requiring the documentation of classified matter breaches, physical security system failures, and other nuclear safeguards violations.
Yet not a single detail has been released to the public. Every incident report was redacted under a wall of legal exemptions—so extensive that even dates and descriptions are blanked out.
☢️ Redacted Reality
The NRC invoked sweeping FOIA exemptions tied to national security, the Atomic Energy Act, commercial confidentiality, law enforcement procedures, and personal privacy. The bottom line: the logs confirm something happened—but we’re barred from knowing what.
This isn’t paperwork overkill. It’s a red flag waving from the perimeter of a uranium enrichment plant.
What are they hiding?
Did someone breach classified containment zones?
Was nuclear material mishandled?
Was there an insider threat?
These are not hypotheticals. These are the questions the public has no power to answer, because the regulators won’t disclose the truth—and the company won’t speak.
The HALEU Dilemma
High-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) sits at the center of Centrus’s business model—and of the risk. Enriched to 19.75% U-235, it hovers just below the threshold of weapons-grade, making it attractive for advanced reactors… and a potent concern for theft, sabotage, or proliferation.
The Piketon facility—once home to Cold War-era weapons production—has become the frontline of America’s HALEU revival. But with that revival comes the very kind of threat these logs seem to document: safeguards failures at a site handling nuclear material with strategic implications.
This year alone, the plant has logged spikes in alpha and beta radiation in its wastewater discharge—data Centrus did not publicize. Now, with confirmed—but silenced—security incidents on record, the pattern grows darker.
🕳️ A Hole in Accountability
Centrus Energy and the Department of Energy have asked Americans to trust them with the future of the nuclear fuel supply chain. But trust demands transparency. And so far, they’ve offered radiation spikes, redacted logs, and a cascade of bureaucratic silence.
At the heart of Appalachia, where families have lived under the shadow of Piketon’s radioactive legacy for generations, a new chapter is being written—not one of accountability and clean energy, but of repeat secrecy and unlearned lessons.
We don’t know what happened.
We don’t know how serious it was.
We only know the system moved to hide it.
Until that changes, the question isn’t whether Centrus is hiding something. It’s why.
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