ASP Isotopes noted that the two companies have also agreed to explore opportunities to develop uranium enrichment production facilities in the United States. TerraPower first announced its plans to invest in the company in October 2024.
Proposed facility: ASP Isotopes is looking to build its enrichment facility at Pelindaba, which is South Africa’s main nuclear research center, the headquarters of Necsa (the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation), and home to a 20-MWt research reactor, SAFARI-1.
The company says the facility, as planned, would have an annual HALEU output of about 15 metric tons of uranium and “is expected to commence initial production of HALEU in 2027, subject to the receipt of all required permits and licenses to begin enrichment of uranium in South Africa, and is anticipated to create hundreds of full-time operational jobs.” The plans are also subject to obtaining more funding: ASP Isotopes is seeking additional construction capital from “a number of financial institutions.”
Supply targets: In addition to a loan agreement to partially fund the proposed facility, ASP Isotopes and TerraPower have entered into two supply agreements for the HALEU the company expects to produce.
An initial core supply agreement is intended to support the first fuel cores for the initial loading of TerraPower’s planned Kemmerer-1 Natrium reactor, while a long-term supply agreement is for up to 150 metric tons of HALEU over a 10-year period from 2028 through the end of 2037.
Technology: ASP Isotopes is developing both a centrifuge enrichment technology and a laser-based technology it calls the Quantum Enrichment Process. The company is currently using its centrifuge technology to enrich light isotopes and believes that both enrichment technologies could be deployed in a HALEU facility.
“Nuclear fuel has one of the most severely compromised supply chains of any material in the world,” said Paul Mann, chair and CEO of both ASP Isotopes and its subsidiary Quantum Laser Enrichment.
Pointing to several decades of technology work at South African universities and later at ASP Isotopes, he said, “Over the next several years our goal is to use our technologies to solve many of the supply challenges which currently exist. Our commercial agreement with TerraPower will enable us to accelerate the construction of an advanced nuclear fuel facility. It will also mobilize hundreds of workers in local regions to build and operate the new enrichment plant and support thousands of direct and indirect jobs across a global manufacturing supply chain.”
Laser prospects: To date, no laser enrichment technology has been used to produce enriched uranium for a commercial market. Two laser enrichers operating in the United States were in the group of six enrichment companies named by the U.S. Department of Energy in December 2024 as eligible to receive future task orders for low-enriched uranium production: Global Laser Enrichment and LIS Technologies.
