EnergySolutions seeking to expand its role in U.K.

EnergySolutions Inc., the owner of the largest private U.S. disposal site for low-level radioactive waste, is seeking a role in the operation of new nuclear power plants in Great Britain.

"We consider ourselves to be a player," Mark Drulia, a spokesman based in Baresbury, northwest England, said Monday. EnergySolutions has experience operating atomic power plants and has been in contact with a range of companies about developing new stations, he said, without elaborating.

EnergySolutions, based in Salt Lake City, already works as a contractor for the U.K.'s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, running two of the country's oldest atomic power plants and managing cleanup operations at other sites. The nuclear-services company contacted the authority to outline its intentions, following an invitation for expressions of interest in using land and assets owned by the NDA, Drulia said.

European utilities including Germany's RWE AG, British Energy Group Plc and Electricite de France SA plan to build new reactors in Britain, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown backs nuclear plants to replace aging units and coal-fired stations. EnergySolutions is working on a proposal to build and operate a nuclear generator in north Wales and has joined with Toshiba Corp.'s Westinghouse Electric Co., the London-based Times reported this week.

Drulia declined to comment on a possible partnership with Westinghouse.

"We are talking to a whole range of companies," David Powell, a Westinghouse regional vice president for the U.K., said Monday, without identifying them. "All we can do is offer our technology to the market. We're dependent on the utilities" to determine sites where the reactors might be built.

The authority is studying all proposals to determine the shape of the commercial process for allocating the use of its land and assets, including radioactive material, spokeswoman Pip Hatt said.