JNFL’s Rokkasho uranium enrichment plant. (Photo: JNFL)
President Trump is in Japan today, with a visit with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the agenda. Takaichi, who took office just last week as Japan’s first female prime minister, has already spoken in favor of nuclear energy and of accelerating the restart of Japan’s long-shuttered power reactors, as Reuters and others have reported. Much of the uranium to power those reactors will be enriched at Japan’s lone enrichment facility—part of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho fuel complex—which accepted its first delivery of fresh uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in 11 years earlier this month.
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.
May 26, 2025, 9:50AMUpdated October 17, 2025, 4:55PMNuclear NewsCory Hatch Commercial nuclear fuel rods being unloaded from cask inside a HFEF hot cell. (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 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.
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.
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.”
Urenco USA employees move a uranium hexafluoride cylinder to an overpack in preparation for shipping to a fuel fabricator.(Photo: Urenco USA)
The startup of a new cascade of gas centrifuge at Urenco USA’s (UUSA) uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, N.M., came ahead of schedule and on budget, according to the company.
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.
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.
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.
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.