Fuel

The U.S Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, through its Defense Production Act (DPA) Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium, has begun a new initiative aimed at securing the nation’s nuclear fuel supply chain.

Orano USA announced on April 22 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) outlining their cooperative relationship to support the construction of Project Ike, Orano’s planned $5 billion centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Department of Energy on April 22 issued two requests for applications seeking proposals from private industry on kickstarting the reprocessing and recycling of spent nuclear fuel in the United States.

According to the DOE, the RFAs represent an unprecedented opportunity for the private sector to restore the nation’s nuclear leadership.

Nevada-based Eagle Nuclear Energy said it will conduct a 27,000-foot investigative drill program at its flagship Aurora Uranium Project along the Oregon–Nevada border beginning in July.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories has signed an agreement with Chicago-based Clean Core Thorium Energy to manufacture demonstration irradiation bundles of Clean Core’s ANEEL (Advanced Nuclear Energy for Enriched Life) fuel. The fuel is made with a combination of thorium and high-assay low-enriched uranium and is designed for use in pressurized heavy water reactors, such as Canada’s CANDU fleet.

Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) has begun production activities at its Burke Hollow in situ recovery (ISR) mining operation in southern Texas after receiving approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). Uranium from the site will be processed at the Hobson Central Processing Plant, which serves as the hub to five satellite ISR projects (referred to as “spokes”) in the Texas Uranium Belt.

Nuclear technology start-up Project Omega announced that it has been awarded a contract through the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to advance used nuclear fuel recycling. Project Omega said the award will be used to validate key components of its molten salt electrochemical recycling platform designed to process UNF, recover valuable isotopes, and reduce long-term waste management challenges.

The end-of-March spot price for uranium was $84.25 per pound, according to uranium fuel provider Cameco. This price is down slightly from the $86.95 of a month before, but about $10 lower than the $94.28 spot price at the end of January.

Officially launched at CERAWeek 2026, held last week in Houston, Texas, FluxPoint Energy has unveiled plans to develop what it expects to be the first new U.S. uranium conversion facility in more than 70 years, a move aimed at strengthening America’s nuclear fuel supply chain.

The Houston- and McLean, Va.–based company plans to convert uranium oxide into uranium hexafluoride (UF₆), a critical intermediate step in producing fuel for the nation’s existing nuclear reactors as well as next-generation technologies under development.

Recent years have seen growing global interest in nuclear energy and rising confidence in the sector. For the first time since the early 2000s, there is renewed optimism about the industry’s future. This change is driven by several major factors: geopolitical developments that highlight the need for secure energy supplies, a stronger focus on resilient energy systems, national commitments to decarbonization, and rising demand for clean and reliable electricity.

American enrichment start-up General Matter is to export nuclear fuel to Japan and South Korea, backed by up to $4.2 billion in potential debt financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM).

The end-of-February spot price for uranium was $86.95 per pound, down from last month’s $94.28—which was a two-year high—according to uranium fuel provider Cameco. Though down, this latest spot price is still higher than at any time since the $90.38 that Cameco listed at the end of May 2024.

Canada’s first in situ recovery (ISR) uranium mining operation has been granted final regulatory approval. Toronto-based Denison Mines Corp. announced last week that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has approved the environmental assessment and issued the license to construct a mine and mill for the company’s Wheeler River uranium project, located in northern Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin. This project, which includes the Phoenix uranium deposit, previously received the necessary provincial approvals.

Adam Burak

We need facilities capable of converting uranium and thorium feedstocks into salts, as well as a source of thorium, if we are to build a domestic fuel salt supply chain.

Our current supply chain provides a potential pathway to produce one type of fuel salt. The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used uranium trifluoride/uranium tetrafluoride (UF_3/4) as fuel in the late 1960s, and some current developers are following suit. Uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) made as part of the enrichment process could be reduced to uranium fluoride salts with a +3 or +4 valence state. However, as oxygen and moisture are critical impurities for molten salt, a facility with the capability to properly handle molten salts would be necessary.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has granted X-energy subsidiary TRISO-X a special nuclear material license for high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel fabrication. The license applies to TRISO-X’s first two planned commercial facilities, known as TX-1 and TX-2, for an initial 40-year period. The facilities are set to be the first new nuclear fuel fabrication plants licensed by the NRC in more than 50 years.

The HALEU cascade at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. (Photo: Centrus Energy)

American Centrifuge Operating, a subsidiary of Centrus Energy Corp., has formed a multiyear strategic collaboration with Fluor Corporation in which Fluor will serve as the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor for Centrus’s expansion of its uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio. Fluor will lead the engineering and design aspects of the American Centrifuge Plant’s expansion, manage the supply chain and procurement of key materials and services, oversee construction at the site, and support the commissioning of new capacity.

Nuclear technology start-up Project Omega announced on February 11 that it has emerged from stealth mode with hopes of processing and recycling spent nuclear fuel into “long-duration, high-density power sources and critical materials for the nuclear industry.”

The Department of Energy has restarted uranium recovery operations at the Savannah River Site’s H Canyon facility in South Carolina, a move officials say directly supports last year’s executive orders to reinvigorate the nation’s nuclear industrial base and enable the deployment of advanced reactor technologies. The work will include recovering uranium and other scarce isotopes from used nuclear fuel while advancing long-term cleanup goals at the site.

The visual hierarchy of stakeholder concerns used throughout the development of EPRI’s newest report on liquid fuel licensing pathways. (Source: EPRI)

The American Nuclear Society’s Risk-informed, Performance-based Principles and Policy Committee (RP3C) has held another presentation in its monthly Community of Practice (CoP) series. Former RP3C chair N. Prasad Kadambi opened the meeting with brief introductory remarks about the RP3C and the need for new approaches to nuclear design that go beyond conventional and deterministic methods. He then welcomed this month’s speaker: Dan Moneghan from the Electric Power Research Institute, who presented “Characterization vs. Qualification: A Pathway to Liquid Fuel Licensing."

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is reporting a development in TRISO fuel research that could help evaluate high-temperature gas reactor fuels. ORNL researchers used the Spallation Neutrons and Pressure Diffractometer at the lab’s Spallation Neutron Source to make neutron scattering measurements on TRISO fuel particles containing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).