US Energy Dept. Awards $2.7B to Expand Enriched Uranium Production Sites

Growing new home manufacturing capability “ensures an satisfactory gas provide is out there to keep up operations of the nation’s 94 industrial reactors builds a robust base to provide future deployments of superior nuclear reactors,”  the company mentioned.

San Francisco-based Basic Matter, one in every of two firms awarded $900 million to create home HALEU enrichment capability, is constructing a $1.5-billion commercial uranium enrichment facility on a leased 100-acre web site on the former federal Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky. In a social media assertion, the corporate mentioned the duty order “accelerates that plan and can make Paducah, Kentucky the cornerstone of U.S. enrichment as soon as once more.”

The opposite HALEU job order was awarded to American Centrifuge Working, an arm of Bethesda, Md.-based Centrus Vitality, that’s working with the division’s Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory in Tennessee to develop what the corporate referred to as “a highly-efficient uranium enrichment fuel centrifuge know-how.” 

Centrus has been performing uranium enrichment operations since 2023 at its American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, the place the corporate mentioned it’s “pioneering” HALEU manufacturing underneath contract to the federal government. In December, Centrus introduced the beginning of home centrifuge manufacturing to help industrial LEU enrichment actions in Piketon, with the primary new manufacturing capability anticipated on-line in 2029.

The division additionally awarded $900 million to Orano Federal Providers to increase U.S. home LEU enrichment capability over the subsequent ten years. The U.S. subsidiary of the French-owned firm says the award will speed up growth of a $5-billion Oak Ridge, Tenn., facility.

Situated on a 920-acre largely greenfield web site, the undertaking’s s preliminary 750,000-sq-ft multi-structure section is on monitor for federal license submission early this yr, the corporate mentioned, with LEU manufacturing scheduled to start in 2031. Orano is presently increasing its current commercial-scale Georges Besse II fuel centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in France, and can “apply the very best practices from that development and growth” to the united statesproduction web site.

The three firms chosen for the duty orders had been amongst six corporations contracted by the division final yr for LEU and HALEU enrichment, permitting them to bid on future work. To make sure accountability, the company mentioned it’ll distribute the awards underneath a strict milestone strategy.

Individually, the division additionally awarded $28 million to World Laser Enrichment, Wilmington, N.C., to proceed advancing next-generation laser-based uranium enrichment know-how. The corporate, which additionally competed for an LEU enrichment job award, plans to construct a facility on a 665-acre web site adjoining to the federal Paduch web site that can use the know-how to re-enrich high-assay depleted uranium tails. 

Operations on the new facility might start as early as 2030.