Jul. 9--Defense and aerospace contractor Alliant Techsystems is about to go nuclear in a big way.

The Eden Prairie company will complete a centrifuge rotor-tube factory in West Virginia next month that will play a crucial role in delivering cheaper enriched uranium to the resurgent nuclear power industry.

Alliant's 125,000-square-foot plant will employ 120 people and produce 11,500 rotor tubes for U.S. Enrichment Corp. (USEC). Alliant's towering rotors, which are key components inside USEC's centrifuges, rotate to separate and concentrate desired uranium isotopes.

The resulting enriched uranium will be sold to nuclear power plants around the globe, USEC officials said.

Centrifuge technology was developed nearly 20 years ago but shelved in its infancy by the U.S. Department of Energy in favor of a laser-based technology that didn't pan out. Centrifuge technology made a comeback after 2001. It uses less electricity and operates at a fraction of the cost of the more common gas-diffusion enrichment methods.

"When USEC goes from the gaseous diffusion process to the gas centrifuge process it uses 95 percent less electricity to produce the same amount of enriched uranium. With today's energy costs you can see why this [technology] is very, very important," said Alliant Aerospace Structures Vice President Mark Messick.

"This centrifuge plant is going to be the only one that uses U.S. technology, so it's strategically important to America," Messick said.

Nuclear energy is a novel venture for the $4.2 billion Alliant Techsystems (ATK). The company began making tubes in 2006 for USEC's demonstration plant in Piketon, Ohio. ATK officials expect their initial $10 million pilot project to blossom into a full production contract worth about $250 million.

USEC will complete an adjacent commercial production plant next year to make 11,500 centrifuges -- each with an ATK rotor inside. Honeywell, Babcock & Wilcox in Virginia and Major Tool and Machine in Indiana will also supply that plant.

A "nuclear renaissance" is taking place in the United States, said Dave McIntyre, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

"The main manifestation of it is that we have received nine applications for 15 new [nuclear] reactors since September. These are the first applications received in about the last 30 years," he said.

While there are 104 U.S. nuclear power reactors and 439 worldwide, USEC is one of only a handful of commercial companies to enrich the uranium used to fuel the reactors. It's also the latest to build a centrifuge plant in the United States, McIntyre said.

Louisiana Energy Services is building a similar plant in New Mexico and Areva Inc., based in France, is building one in Idaho, he said.