Centrus

The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) announced six companies have successfully bid to provide deconversion services for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel to support advanced nuclear reactors. The DOE on October 8 announced the complete list of successful bidders. They include Nuclear Fuel Services, part of BWX Technologies (BWXT); American Centrifuge Operating, part of Centrus […]

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has fabricated roughly two dozen commercial-grade fuel pellets of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) uranium dioxide (UO2), the Department of Energy (DOE) revealed on Nov. 20. The milestone demonstrates the national laboratory’s “unique ability” to provide customized nuclear fuel for industry and government partners, the DOE said. INL said researchers at the […]

The U.S. Air Force’s first nuclear microreactor planned for Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska under a federal nuclear microreactor pilot program will be an Oklo liquid metal-cooled fast reactor. The Defense of Logistics Agency (DLA), acting on behalf of the Department of Air Force (DAF), on Aug. 31 issued a Notice of Intent to Award […]

Centrus, a firm poised to demonstrate high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production, will partner with microreactor technology developer Oklo on several pioneering steps to build out the HALEU front-end supply chain, including pivotal commercial deconversion capabilities. The landmark collaboration could also make Centrus one of Oklo’s first commercial power off-takers for two reactors planned in Southern […]

Marking a major milestone, Centrus Energy—a firm under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) with domestic technology—on Feb. 9 said it completed construction and initial testing of its advanced uranium enrichment centrifuge cascade as well as most of its associated support systems. Once the company […]

The Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a request for information (RFI) on a planned temporary federal program to ensure enough high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) will be available to jumpstart deployment of a new fleet of advanced nuclear reactors.  Comments received over the next month in response to the DOE’s Dec. 14–issued RFI will inform […]

A site at PacifiCorp’s retiring 600-MW coal and gas–fired Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, will house the Natrium demonstration, a pioneering commercial-scale 500-MW project that will pair a 345-MW sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt-based energy storage system. Project stakeholders on Nov. 16 unveiled the site for the federally backed demonstration, which will validate […]

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has given its green light to a license amendment filed by Centrus Energy Corp., approving the nuclear fuel and services firm’s efforts to demonstrate High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) production at its enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio.  The approval marks a “major milestone” in Centrus’s $115 million, cost-shared contract with the […]

Bill Gates’ nuclear innovation startup TerraPower and Berkshire Hathaway Energy subsidiary PacifiCorp are looking to site a federally backed demonstration of their 345-MWe Natrium advanced nuclear reactor system at a retiring PacifiCorp coal power plant in Wyoming. During a June 2  energy event in Cheyenne attended by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer […]

Centrus Energy, a firm under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) with domestic technology, says it expects to begin producing the advanced nuclear fuel material by June 2022 at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Centrus President and CEO Daniel Poneman said on March […]