After winning tax concessions from the Idaho Legislature, French-owned energy services company Areva Inc. says it will build a $2 billion uranium enrichment facility near Idaho Falls.

The plant will be built on a site near the Idaho National Laboratory.

A late-session push in the Legislature to extend a sales tax exemption for production equipment that handles nuclear fuel and to cap property tax valuations at the plant to $400 million helped convince the company to select Idaho over sites in Washington, Ohio, Texas and New Mexico.

Areva plans to add the new plant by 2014 to help compensate for a U.S. nuclear fuel supply that could shrink, as a program in which Russia has been converting weapons-grade uranium to low-enriched uranium and selling it to an Areva rival expires in 2013.

Before the plant is built, Areva still must get approval from local, state and national agencies, including a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to construct and operate the facility.

The NRC took applications to build seven new commercial U.S. nuclear reactors last year, with 25 more licensing requests expected through 2009. As interest in nuclear power grows, there are two other uranium enrichment plants being built in the United States, one in southeastern New Mexico and another in Piketon, Ohio.

(AP)