Fuel


Researchers use one-of-a-kind expertise and capabilities to test fuels of tomorrow

October 9, 2025, 10:31AMNuclear NewsCory Hatch
INL hot cell operators remove irradiated commercial fuel rods from their storage basket. (Photo: INL)

At the Idaho National Laboratory Hot Fuel Examination Facility, containment box operator Jake Maupin moves a manipulator arm into position around a pencil-thin nuclear fuel rod. He is preparing for a procedure that he and his colleagues have practiced repeatedly in anticipation of this moment in the hot cell.

The current status of heat pipe R&D

October 9, 2025, 10:31AMNuclear NewsIlyas Yilgor, Mauricio Tano, Katrina Sweetland, Joshua Hansel, and Piyush Sabharwall
A high-temperature heat pipe glows during operation at ~800°C at INL’s SPHERE test facility. (Photo: INL)

Idaho National Laboratory under the Department of Energy–sponsored Microreactor Program recently conducted a comprehensive phenomena identification and ranking table (PIRT) exercise aimed at advancing heat pipe technology for microreactor applications.

Leading the charge: INL’s role in advancing HALEU production

October 9, 2025, 10:30AMNuclear NewsDonna Kemp Spangler
INL researchers inspect a sample from the HALEU purification solvent extraction process. (Photo: INL)

Idaho National Laboratory is playing a key role in helping the U.S. Department of Energy meet near-­term needs by recovering HALEU from federal inventories, providing critical support to help lay the foundation for a future commercial HALEU supply chain. INL also supports coordination of broader DOE efforts, from material recovery at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to commercial enrichment initiatives.

Innovation for advanced fuels at SRNL

October 3, 2025, 3:01PMNuclear NewsCatelyn Folkert
The Savannah River Site’s H Tank Farm holds high-level waste byproducts from the HEU recovery process in H Canyon. (Photo: SRNS)

As the only Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management–sponsored national lab, Savannah River National Laboratory has a history deeply rooted in environmental stewardship efforts such as nuclear material processing and disposition technologies. SRNL’s demonstrated expertise is now being leveraged to solve nuclear fuel supply -chain obstacles by providing a source of high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel for advanced reactors.

Uranium prices up: Could demand more than double?

October 2, 2025, 12:01PMNuclear News

Canadian uranium provider Cameco has calculated an end-of-September spot price for uranium of $82.63 per pound—the highest mark of 2025. The lowest spot price listed all year by Cameco was $64.23 per pound at the end of March, while the previous high was $78.50 per pound at the end of June.

Urenco USA gets OK to enrich uranium up to 10 percent

October 2, 2025, 9:35AMNuclear News
Urenco USA staff outside the Eunice, N.M., enrichment facility. (Photo: Urenco)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized Urenco USA to enrich uranium up to 10 percent U-235 following changes to plant systems and procedures and an operational readiness review. The company announced the news today, two days after the NRC issued its authorization on September 30 and said that all existing and future cascades at its Eunice, N.M., enrichment facility will be licensed to produce both low-enriched uranium, typically enriched to 5 percent fissile U-235, and LEU+, between 5 and 10 percent U-235.

Four companies picked for fast-tracked fuel fabrication

October 1, 2025, 9:30AMNuclear News

The Department of Energy has fast-tracked its selections for the Fuel Line Pilot Program. Four companies—Oklo, Terrestrial Energy, TRISO-X, and Valar Atomics—were named September 30 as “conditional selections” for a “fast-track approach to commercial licensing,” bringing the total to five. The first company conditionally chosen for a DOE-authorized fuel fabrication facility—Standard Nuclear—was named less than three weeks after the program opened to applicants in July.

NN Asks: What’s the biggest challenge in scaling fuel fabrication?

September 30, 2025, 7:06AMNuclear NewsJennifer Wheeler

Jennifer Wheeler

In this new era of nuclear, the word “scalable” can mean many different things. From new advanced reactor designs that can meet the diverse needs of big power users like hyperscalers to industrial process heat applications, and from remote rural communities to new fuel cycle facilities (conversion, enrichment, deconversion, fuel fabrication), there is much to consider when predicting and meeting developing demand signals.

The biggest challenge in scaling fuel fabrication is recognizing that scaling applies to much more than taking the specific process equipment used to manufacture fuel products from pilot scale to commercial scale to nth-of-a-kind scale. For a first-of-a-kind fuel facility where there is no available reference facility to use as a basis, there is a delicate balance—and often an iterative dance—between fuel demand, right-sizing the facility, and project financing. Let’s focus on three major areas: factory throughput, staffing, and space.

Centrus says Ohio stands to gain 300 jobs as enrichers await federal contracts

September 26, 2025, 7:01AMNuclear News
Centrus employees maneuver a cylinder at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. (Photo: Centrus Energy)

Centrus Energy announced a plan yesterday to add 300 new jobs at Centrus’s uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, “in advance of federal funding decisions.” The company envisions adding capacity for both low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium production at its American Centrifuge Plant, but the “size and scope” of public and private investment is “subject to being selected for funding by the U.S. Department of Energy.”

Kairos Power and BWXT team up on TRISO

September 3, 2025, 12:01PMNuclear News
Kairos Power’s fluoride salt–cooled high-temperature Reactor (KP-FHR) uses TRISO fuel embedded in annular graphite pebbles roughly the size of a golf ball. (Photo: Kairos Power)

Kairos Power and BWX Technologies announced today that they will work together to “collaboratively explore” optimizing commercial production of TRISO fuel for Kairos’s planned advanced reactor fleet—beginning with the 50-MWe Hermes 2, slated for operation in 2030—and other potential customers. Their collaboration could include jointly developing a TRISO fuel fabrication facility.

DOE allocates HALEU to Antares, Standard Nuclear, and ACU/Natura

August 27, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy made conditional commitments yesterday to provide high-assay low-enriched uranium to three companies: reactor developer Antares Nuclear; fuel fabricator Standard Nuclear; and Natura Resources, which is backing Abilene Christian University’s development of a small Molten Salt Research Reactor and pursuing a commercial reactor design of its own. Following a contracting process, some of the companies “could receive their HALEU later this year.”

DOE-NE’s newest fuel consortium includes defense from antitrust laws

August 26, 2025, 3:23PMNuclear News

The Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy is setting up a nuclear fuel Defense Production Act Consortium that will seek voluntary agreements with interested companies “to increase fuel availability, provide more access to reliable power, and end America’s reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium and critical materials needed to power the nation’s nuclear renaissance.” According to an August 22 DOE press release, the plan invokes the Defense Production Act (DPA) to give consortium members “defense from antitrust laws when certain criteria are met” and “allow industry consultation to develop plans of action.” DOE-NE is looking for interested companies to join the consortium ahead of its first meeting, scheduled for October 14.

High-burnup fuel rods arrive at PNNL for testing

August 14, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear News
Fuel rods were delivered to PNNL in late June 2025 in a 30-ton canister. (Photo: Andrea Starr/PNNL)

Eleven high-burnup fuel rods manufactured by Global Nuclear Fuel have been delivered to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for a battery of destructive tests. PNNL’s evaluation will provide GNF and the Department of Energy with information about the performance of the fuel, which—like other fuels developed through the DOE’s Accident Tolerant Fuel program— was engineered to handle longer operating cycles, improve fuel cycle economics, and support power uprates for existing light water reactors.

Oklo and Lightbridge consider co-located fuel fabrication facility

August 14, 2025, 9:31AMNuclear News
Concept art showing the Aurora Powerhouse. (Image: Oklo)

A strategic collaboration has been launched by Lightbridge Corporation and Oklo Inc. to explore locating Lightbridge’s fuel fabrication facility within Oklo’s planned advanced fuel manufacturing facility. The collaboration aims to “accelerate the commercialization of advanced nuclear fuels through joint fuel fabrication and research and development, including manufacturing fuel using repurposed plutonium from legacy materials,” according to the companies.

Work advances on X-energy’s TRISO fuel fabrication facility

August 11, 2025, 9:32AMNuclear News

Small modular reactor developer X-energy, together with its fuel-developing subsidiary TRISO-X, has selected Clark Construction Group to finish the building construction phase of its advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility, known as TX-1, in Oak Ridge, Tenn. It will be the first of two Oak Ridge facilities built to manufacture the company’s TRISO fuel for use in its Xe-100 SMR. The initial deployment of the Xe-100 will be at Dow Chemical Company’s UCC Seadrift Operations manufacturing site on Texas’s Gulf Coast.

Uranium spot price drops

August 7, 2025, 7:07AMNuclear News

Uranium provider Cameco has calculated an end-of-July spot price for uranium of $71.10—a decline from the $78.50 of the previous month. Cameco lists a long-term price of $81.00 for July, which is the same price that was listed in January. From February to June, the long-term price was $80.00.

Uranium futures were about $71.45 per pound on August 4, according to online analysis firm Trading Economics, which noted that continued prices near $71.50 are maintaining the price drop from the seven-month high of $79.00 in mid-June. The relatively low prices are related to a lack of buying from holding funds, which have received lowered bids from utilities. Nevertheless, uranium prices are higher at this point, compared with the $63.70 price in mid-March this year.

General Matter to build Kentucky enrichment plant under DOE lease

August 6, 2025, 12:00PMNuclear News
Uranium hexafluoride cylinders stand in a cylinder yard at the Paducah site. (Photo: DOE)

The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management announced it has signed a lease with General Matter for the reuse of a 100-acre parcel of federal land at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky for a new private-sector domestic uranium enrichment facility.

Lightbridge to test uranium-zirconium fuel alloy in INL’s ATR

August 1, 2025, 9:30AMNuclear News
Diagram showing the structure of Lightbridge Fuel. (Image: Lightbridge)

Lightbridge Corporation has fabricated samples of nuclear fuel materials made of an enriched uranium-zirconium alloy, matching the composition of the alloy that the company intends to use for its future commercial Lightbridge Fuel product. The fuel is designed to improve the performance, safety, and proliferation resistance of nuclear reactors, according to the company. The enriched coupon samples will now be placed into capsules for irradiation testing in Idaho National Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor.