The U.S. Department of Energy awarded $2.7 billion in ten-year task orders to expand domestic uranium enrichment, dividing the work evenly among three companies, according to World Nuclear News.

General Matter, American Centrifuge Operating and Orano Federal Services each received $900 million. General Matter and American Centrifuge Operating, a Centrus Energy subsidiary, were directed toward high-assay low-enriched uranium capacity. Orano Federal Services was tasked with expanding domestic low-enriched uranium output.

High-assay low-enriched uranium, enriched to between 5% and 20% uranium-235, is the fuel most advanced reactor designs require. Almost no commercial supply exists in the United States, and the small quantity available has come from downblended government material and from a single demonstration line. Several small modular reactor programs have identified fuel availability as a schedule constraint independent of their licensing progress.

The enrichment awards sit alongside smaller programs targeting the rest of the fuel chain. The department announced $11 million split among five companies to develop and license transportation packages for HALEU, a prerequisite for moving the material between enrichment sites, fabrication plants and reactors. A separate $17 million round funded criticality benchmarking projects, and the department has made $80 million available for new HALEU production technologies.

General Matter's award supports enrichment work at Paducah, Kentucky, at a site tied to the country's earlier gaseous diffusion program.

Source: World Nuclear News - https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/doe-awards-usd27-billion-to-strengthen-us-uranium-enrichment