The governments of Kentucky and McCracken County have granted preliminary approval to Global Laser Enrichment for a comprehensive incentive package to support the development of the North Carolina–based company’s planned Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility in the western part of the state. The performance-based incentive package would provide as much as $98.9 million in tax incentives and other economic incentives—provided that GLE reaches the required thresholds in investments and job creation.

In addition, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has completed a draft environmental impact statement (EIS) in response to GLE’s application to construct and operate the PLEF. Members of the public can submit comments on the draft EIS by May 11 for consideration by the NRC.

Global Laser Enrichment has commenced uranium enrichment demonstration testing at its test loop pilot facility at the company’s headquarters in Wilmington, N.C. The technology readiness level-6 testing program is expected to be a pivotal validation of large-scale enrichment performance under operationally relevant conditions, according to the company.

On March 26, Silex Systems Ltd. announced that Global Laser Enrichment’s test loop pilot demonstration facility and operational safety programs have been reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and approved for loading uranium hexafluoride feed material in preparation for the next phase of GLE’s enrichment technology demonstration in the second quarter of 2024.

Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) signed separate, nonbinding letters of intent in June with the two largest nuclear power operators in the United States—Constellation and Duke Energy—to assess potential nuclear fuel supply chain cooperation, including support for GLE’s deployment of laser enrichment technology in the United States. According to GLE president and chief commercial officer James Dobchuk, who delivered a presentation on June 7 at the World Nuclear Fuel Market Annual Meeting, the company’s baseline deployment schedule could be accelerated by about three years (under favorable market conditions) to supply the nuclear fuel market with uranium in a range of enrichment levels in 2027.

The Department of Energy has signed an amendment to a 2016 sales agreement with Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) that will provide the company with access to large stockpiles of DOE-owned depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) tails as GLE looks to build its proposed uranium enrichment facility at the DOE’s Paducah site in Kentucky. As announced on June 5, the amendment is one of the conditions of a 2019 agreement by Australia’s Silex Systems Limited, Canada’s Cameco Corporation, and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy for the restructuring of GLE, the exclusive licensee of Silex’s laser uranium enrichment technology.

Separately, the DOE announced on June 5 that it has issued a formal record of decision for the shipment and disposal of depleted uranium oxide from the former gaseous diffusion plants at the department’s Paducah and Portsmouth sites in Ohio to one or more disposal facilities in the western United States.