US Rebuilding Nuclear Fuel and Uranium Enrichment Production

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Between 1985 to 2015, U.S. uranium enrichment capacity fell to nearly zero from 27.3 million Separative Work Units a year, while Russia’s Tenex became a world leader, increasing production to 26.6 million SWU a year from just 3 million in the mid-eighties. [Statement source: figures by Centrus and U.S. Energy Information Administration. However, Urenco has US enrichment capacity since 2010. The only current uranium enrichment capability in the United States is in Urenco’s New Mexico plant, with a capacity of some 4.7 million SWU/yr in 2020 (per World Nuclear Association). The Department of Energy (DOE) projects the U.S. market alone will need more than 40 metric tons of HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium), for the new generation of reactors by the end of the decade.

NOTE: There was a commenter who rudely asserted that Urenco is supplying low-enriched uranium in the United States. UUSA (Urenco USA) was the first new nuclear project in the U.S. in almost 30 years. They invested around $5 billion their facility, which was one of the largest construction projects in the state of New Mexico. The site began producing enriched uranium in June 2010 and the first customer delivery was completed in March 2012.

Third Way also confirms the folowing:

For civilian nuclear power, these fuels are typically characterized in two classes: low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel used to power conventional light water reactors (LWRs) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) needed to power many advanced reactor technologies. Russia is a major global provider of LEU fuel services and is currently the only commercial supplier of HALEU in the world.

Urenco US enrichment facility is located in Eunice, New Mexico. It is the only commercial enrichment facility operating in the US, with a current production capacity of 4,600 tSW/a.

There are currently 93 operational LWRs in the US with an average refueling cycle of 18 to 24 months. The vast majority of uranium used in US reactors is converted, enriched, and imported to the country—of which almost half comes from former Soviet Republics. Urenco USA operates the only commercial uranium enrichment facility in the US, located in New Mexico.

The US has invested billions of dollars in swiftly developing advanced nuclear projects through the ARDP. These demonstrations are targeting deployment by 2028—meaning many of these reactors will need initial core loads of HALEU by 2025, or even sooner. Lack of HALEU availability would induce costly delays in bringing the ARDP reactors online.

Downblending of high-enriched uranium (HEU) is being explored by the DOE as an option for developing HALEU from existing uranium fuel inventories and is expected to be part of DOE’s upcoming assistance plan on nuclear fuels. DOE’s HEU is managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and earmarked for defense purposes. Downblending requires securing a portion of NNSA’s finite HEU stocks and mixing the material with natural or depleted uranium to reduce the concentration of U-235 to the desired levels for HALEU fuel fabrication. Due to the complexity of the process and the need for highly sensitive uranium products, downblending would require significant funding, likely as high as $200 million, to produce enough HALEU to meet near-term demand.

A lot of the effort is going into more advanced TRISO fuel pellets. What is TRISO Fuel? TRISO stands for TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel. Each TRISO particle is made up of a uranium, carbon and oxygen fuel kernel. The kernel is encapsulated by three layers of carbon- and ceramic-based materials that prevent the release of radioactive fission products.

X-energy and Kairos Power, along with the Department of Defense, are planning to use TRISO fuel for their designs—including some small modular and micro-reactor concepts. X-Energy Reactor Company subsidiary TRISO-X is developing key fuel fabrication processes as part of a team led by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems for the first phase of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program which is just coming to an end. The phase has involved two tracks, for which contracts were announced in 2021. The contract for Track A, a baseline design of a nuclear thermal rocket, or NTR, was awarded to General Atomics. Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin were contracted to work independently on the Track B contract, to develop an operational system concept to meet operational mission objectives and a demonstration system design with a focus on demonstrating the propulsion subsystem.

The next two phases of the DRACO programme will culminate in a flight demonstration, which DARPA envisions will take place in fiscal 2027. The next phase of the project will involve a cold flow test of the rocket engine without nuclear fuel. The project’s third phase involve assembly of the fueled NTR with the stage, environmental testing, and launch into space to conduct experiments on the NTR and its reactor.

TRISO fuel was first developed in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1960s with uranium dioxide fuel. In 2002, the Department of Energy (DOE) focused on improving TRISO fuel using uranium oxycarbide fuel kernels and enhancing its irradiation performance and manufacturing methods in order to further develop advanced high-temperature gas reactors.

In 2009, this improved TRISO fuel set an international record by achieving a 19% maximum burnup during a three-year test at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). This is nearly double the previous mark set by the Germans in the 1980s and is three times the burnup that current light-water fuels can achieve—demonstrating its long-life capability.

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has allocated over $350 billion in climate provisions, put aside an investment of $700 million to support the development of a domestic supply of HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium), the DOE finalized a key HALEU production contract with a Centrus subsidiary, and BWX Technologies began TRISO fuel production for the Department of Defense (DoD).

Of that $700 million, $500 million will go toward making HALEU for the first advanced reactors and establish the HALEU consortium, $100 million will be to design and license HALEU transportation systems, and the remaining $100 million will support the availability of HALEU for research, development, demonstration, and commercial use.

In September, the White House sent an ’emergency requirement’ to provide $1.5 billion for the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy to build a reliable supply of low-enriched uranium for existing plants and HALEU.

Centrus’ American Centrifuge Operating (ACO) has started work on its uranium enrichment centrifuges in Piketon, Ohio, through a cost-sharing contract with the DOE, while front runners for the U.S. HALEU plan include Global Laser Enrichment, French uranium enricher Orano, and the British-German-Dutch enricher Urenco.

20 thoughts on “US Rebuilding Nuclear Fuel and Uranium Enrichment Production”

  1. This is just a bailout to many of the US nuclear startups because there wasn’t a capable domestic supply chain for HALEU, and only russia was supplying internationally. No HALEU, and more than half the the nuclear startups go belly up. Gotta bail out Silicon Valley bros, Bill Gates and Terrapower in particular.

    The suspect subsidy for centrifuge enrichment, and cut outs against both SILEX laser enrichment and aerodynamic cyclonic vortex separation (a startup built from the remains of apartheid era South African nuclear program, https://aspisotopes.com/ ) seems a little suspect.

  2. nd while those aforementioned companies should be able to vie for TRISO and other fuel types going forward the DOE has conveniently written the qualification requirements to ensure ONLY the American Centrifuge Project qualifies. And with a bit of research you ll be able to tell why given the CEO of that same company was previously a high ranking official within the DOE. Blends nicely with Kairos and Natrium “awards”

    • Not sure what interaction this statement is based on:

      “NOTE: There was a commenter who rudely asserted that Urenco is supplying low-enriched uranium in the United States.”

      Urenco does indeed supply low enriched uranium in the USA.

      The Piketon Ohio centrifuge demonstration plant operated only briefly and didn’t meet expectations per fuel buyer.

      Guess I’ve been at this so long I predate the Louisiana Energy Services enrichment plant.

      I can take a hint. Peace out.

      • he he
        Dont take it personally. You were correct, and while those aforementioned companies should be able to vie for TRISO and other fuel types going forward the DOE has conveniently written the qualification requirements to ensure ONLY the American Centrifuge Project qualifies. And with a bit of research you ll be able to tell why given the CEO of that same company was previously a high ranking official within the DOE

  4. Small factoid. First commercial nuclear reactor was a British CO2 gas reactor that used a graphite moderator. I think 15 or so were built (one or two still operate). The reactors were noticeably more efficient than water reactors (something like 38% versus 33%). However, gas reactors are quite large because of the use of the graphite moderator and that is a cost consideration.

    A large gas reactor was built in the U.S. in Colorado, but it was a commercial failure while experiencing major technical problems. Clearly did not help the cause of gas reactors.

  5. Looks to me like the HALEU fuel is required for many of the exotic advanced reactors under development. Unclear whether any of them are really commercially viable, or ever will be.
    The small water reactors (NUSCALE, BWXT small BWR) do not need HALEU, and in any case can not use it as a result of fundamental safety concerns. While I doubt these small water reactors are really cost-competitive, they look to be a practical way forward for nuclear power in this country.

    • The LightBridge alloy fuel product for LWRs (and icebreakers) uses HALEU because the alloy is 50%Zr and 50%U. They need to have the uranium enriched to 13% 235U to give the spatial density of fissile atoms we see in normal LWR fuel.

  6. scaryjello so this is a complete waste of time or just that we don’t need that much TSIRO that soon? There’s a chicken and egg problem they’re trying to solve here but maybe overdoing it?

    • Triso is fine for whatever little space reactor or whatnot… just doesn’t scale to a 100GWe fleet with competitive economics. Never going to be competitive with uranium rust pressed into pellets and put into tubes.

  7. We have to do something. Joe Biden and his Libtards are benning gas powered stoves. Next they will ban dryers, hot water heaters and furnaces. They want America to be Electric which our grid cannot handle. So we have to build new power plants. Wind and solar is green but UNRELIABLE. Nuclear is green in the short term if operated within safety guidelines. France has proven that for 50 years.

    • So as long as they replace the fossils with nuke electricity they aren’t libtards? So far they aren’t agin but aren’t a lot of help either compared to the resources they spent buying slave labor built wind/solar from China.

  8. Maybe the spare HALEU can be used for Clean Core’s ANEEL fuel for CANDU reactors. ANEEL uses HALEU and Thorium together, which reportedly increases the burnup sevenfold. Supposed to be in INL’s test reactor right now. Search Youtube “clean core teac11”, skip to 19:48 to get to the meat of it.

  9. There is ~9gU in a ~200g PBR pebble (Google it). Add in stacking void space and the spatial uranium density of XE-100, HTR-PM, Kairos is <1/50 of LWR. What this means is that your waste stream has 20 to 50 times the volume depending on the initial enrichment.

    Look to see if China actually builds more pebble beds. That will mean I'm wrong.

    • And why USA doesn’t enrich?

      1. Market economy – utilities want cheap fuel

      2. Megatons to Megawatts provided free SWU for decades. There was no market for SWU because we were down blending Russian weapons.

      3. Military doesn’t need it (surplus)

      4. The giant centrifuges we built in piketon Ohio didn’t work well.

    • Actually its 12 times the volume. 30% the mass and 25% the activity. Given the tiny amount of waste its not a huge deal.
      ]
      Lookup “Nuclear Waste Attributes of SMRs Scheduled for Near-Term Deployment”

    • The TRISO fuel is basically intended to be used with gas reactors that use graphite as a moderator. The gas reactor energy density is significantly lower than light water reactors which means the gas reactor fuel will not melt; the heat is removed by natural convection from the reactor vessel. Conventional water reactor cores will melt if forced cooling (pumps) is lost for more than 30 minutes after shutdown – that is what occurred at Fukushima.
      Gas reactors are significantly more efficient than water reactors which means the gas reactor spent fuel uranium mass is significantly less than an equivalent water reactor. The TRISO fuel is rugged and not particularly prone to react with the environment, unlike conventional water reactor spent fuel. That ruggedness also means it is very difficult to recycle the fuel which means it is effectively impossible to make a bomb. The plutonium in conventional water reactor spent fuel can be readily chemically extracted and can be made into a bomb.
      While gas reactors are impressive, operating at high temperatures is not without problems. The conventional water reactor technology operates at much lower temperatures and is thus easier to deal with. That is why I believe the gas reactors have not caught on. That being said, it’s not as though water reactors are being built in the US; they are not remotely cost effective.

  10. TRISO is manufactured using PVD – the most related field is semiconductor chip manufacture. Not cheap by comparison to pressed/sintered oxide in tubes easily made by the kiloton every year.

    The charter of the DOE is to disperse money to cronies in support of DEI and ESG. KAIROS is a crony Corporation with a lock on DOE money because Per Peterson of UCBerkeley was with Ernie Monez on Hussein Obama’s “blue ribbon commission on the future of nuclear energy” (wat a mouthful). I don’t believe a word the deal he says, but the 40 tons/year of HALEU mentioned is about the mass of one 1GWe LWR reload and the fissile material of 4 reloads (assuming HALEU @ 20%). Even if Hermes and xe-100 are online by 2030, there will not be demand for 40 tons of HALEU.

    The federal government does not want nuclear energy. They will begrudgingly allow its continuation so long as the most uneconomical, indestructable TRISO fuel product is used. Otherwise, use LWRs.

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