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Centrus Gets NRC Green Light to Introduce Uranium Into HALEU Nuclear Enrichment Cascade
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has allowed Centrus Energy—a firm contracted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to demonstrate high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production with domestic technology—to introduce uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into its uranium enrichment centrifuge cascade in Piketon, Ohio.
The development marks yet another critical milestone for Bethesda, Maryland–headquartered company in its efforts to begin first-of-a-kind HALEU production at its American Centrifuge cascade in Ohio by December 31, 2023. When completed, the facility could be the first new U.S.-owned, U.S.-technology enrichment plant to begin production in 70 years, it has noted.
The Big Step to Address a Crucial Nuclear Fuel Supply Gap
While delayed by supply chain constraints and the COVID pandemic, the pioneering demonstration has been eagerly awaited, given its implications for alleviating—even if moderately—supplies of HALEU, a form of uranium-235 fuel enriched to 20%. Experts note that because HALEU is enriched higher than the 4% to 5% level typically used in existing reactors, it may provide more power per volume than conventional reactors, and its efficiency allows for smaller plant sizes. The fuel type also promises longer core life and a higher burn-up rate of nuclear waste.
Several advanced nuclear reactor designs, including nine of the 10 designs awarded under the DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP), require HALEU. However, HALEU is currently available from only two sources: limited amounts from the DOE via down-blending of existing stockpiles of material and from commercial supplies via TENEX, a nuclear fuel company owned by Russian state-owned company Rosatom.
Centrus’s American Centrifuge cascade uses gas centrifuge machines, which feed uranium hexafluoride (UF6)—heated to a gaseous state—into a rotor inside the centrifuge machine. A rotor spinning at high speed inside a steel casing uses centrifugal force to concentrate the heavier U-238 isotopes at the outer wall of the rotor and the lighter U-235 isotopes toward the rotor center. The streams are then fed to the next machines in a “cascade” to achieve the desired level of enrichment. Centrus will use a 4.95% LEU feed material for its planned HALEU 16 AC100M-centrifuge cascade. It suggests roughly 85% of the separative work units (SWU)—a measure of enrichment needed to produce HALEU—is already contained in the LEU feed material
Centrus Energy’s original AC100 machine was developed with support from the Department of Energy and later refined by Centrus to the current AC100M machine under contract with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Centrus Energy will demonstrate 16 of its centrifuges at its enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio. The machines will be used to enrich uranium hexafluoride gas to produce an initial 20 kilograms of HALEU by December 2023 to support advanced reactor fuel qualification testing and reactor demonstration projects. Courtesy: Centrus
NRC Green Light Follows Operational Readiness Reviews
The company began building its cascade of 16 AC100M centrifuges in 2019, after entering into a $115 million cost-shared contract with the DOE, under which the DOE agreed to reimburse the company for 80% of its costs incurred in performing the contract. While the contract was modified several times, the government’s total contract funding currently amounts to $173 million.
In 2022, the DOE elected to move the operational portion of the demonstration to a competitively-award contract to prolong the operational period. After a solicitation process, it awarded a $150 million “definitized contract” to Centrus under two phases through 2024. Phase 1 calls for the completion of the cascade and the start of operations to produce an initial 20 kg of HALEU UF6 (19.75% enriched) by December 31, 2023. Centrus in February 2023 completed construction and initial testing of its advanced uranium enrichment centrifuge cascade as well as most of its associated support systems.
Under Phase 2, Centrus plans to continue production for a full year at an annual production rate of 900 kg of HALEU. The DOE will own the HALEU produced from the demonstration cascade. The operation contract also gives the DOE options to pay for up to nine additional years beyond the base contract, though those options will be subject to the availability of Congressional appropriations.
According to Centrus, the NRC’s approval issued on Thursday to allow Centrus to possess uranium and introduce it into the demonstration cascade follows the federal regulator’s operational readiness review. “The operational readiness reviews were required under Centrus’ NRC license, which was successfully amended in 2021 to make the Piketon site the only NRC-licensed HALEU production facility,” the company noted.
Next Steps: Scaling Up?
Now that construction and initial testing have been wrapped up, and the NRC has authorized Centrus to introduce UF6 into the HALEU cascade, Centrus will focus on completing construction on an on-site HALEU storage area. It plans to also conduct final testing activities prior to operation as slated by year-end.
Centrus is separately also exploring the possibility to scale up the Piketon facility for expanded HALEU production. Provided that it can secure sufficient funding or off-take contracts, the company estimates that a full-scale HALEU cascade—consisting of 120 individual centrifuge machines with a combined capacity of approximately 6,000 kg of HALEU per year (6 MTU/year)—could be brought online within about 42 months. “Centrus has the capability to add an additional cascade every six months after that,” it said.
DOE Takes Notable Steps to Boost Domestic HALEU Availability
The DOE estimates that more than 40 metric tons (40,000 kg) of HALEU could be needed by 2030 to deploy a new fleet of advanced reactors in a timeframe that supports the Biden administration’s goal of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035.
Under the HALEU Availability Program, which Congress established in the Energy Act of 2020, the DOE has so far established a “HALEU Consortium,” a public-private coordination effort. The DOE has meanwhile also begun working to establish a temporary domestic demand for HALEU to stimulate a diverse supply of commercial HALEU. It hopes that these efforts could ultimately lead “to a competitive HALEU market and more certain domestic HALEU demand.”
On June 12, notably, the DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy issued a notice to prepare an environmental impact statement in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the DOE’s proposed efforts to facilitate and commercialize domestic HALEU production.
On Monday, the agency also issued two draft requests for proposals (RFPs) focused on HALEU acquisition. The first RFP is related to services and HALEU material production. The second RFP focuses on deconversion activities to convert enriched UF6 gas into metal or oxide forms, which can be used to fabricate fuels needed by several advanced reactor developers.
—Sonal Patel is a POWER senior associate editor (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
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Centrus Energy Corp. is a trusted supplier of enriched uranium fuel for a growing fleet of international and domestic commercial nuclear power plants. Centrus is working to deploy the American Centrifuge technology for commercial needs and to support U.S. energy and national security.
Centrus Energy Corp. is a trusted supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants in the United States and around the world. Our mission is to provide reliable and competitive fuel goods and services to meet the needs of our customers, consistent with the highest levels of integrity, safety, and security.
Centrus Energy Corp. and its predecessors have supplied low enriched uranium to utilities around the world for more than 50 years.
The U.S. government began enriching uranium in the 1940s for defense purposes. In the 1960s, it began providing commercial sales of enriched uranium to the burgeoning commercial nuclear power industry.
Over the next twenty years, the U.S. government’s uranium enrichment complex became the primary supplier of low enriched uranium to utilities around the world. In the 1970s, the Nixon administration first proposed the privatization of the government’s enrichment business.
In 1992, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 created the United States Enrichment Corporation, a government corporation, out of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Uranium Enrichment Enterprise with plans to eventually privatize the government’s uranium enrichment organization. The new government corporation began operations in July 1993.
The U.S. government sold the United States Enrichment Corporation in an initial public offering in 1998, and USEC Inc., a private, investor-owned company, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Proceeds from the sale provided more than $3 billion to the U.S. Treasury.
After a financial restructuring in 2014, USEC Inc. re-emerged as Centrus Energy Corp. The United States Enrichment Corporation remains as one of Centrus’ subsidiaries and continues serving customers.
As an investor-owned company, Centrus continues a 50-year tradition of reliability: all customer shipments have been made on time and within specification.
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Serves customers worldwide by supplying low enriched uranium from inventories, the Russian LEU transitional supply contract and other sources.
Group of subsidiaries set up to develop Centrus’ centrifuge technology, build commercial AC100 centrifuge machines, and construct and operate the American Centrifuge Plant.
Operates demonstration facilities in Piketon, Ohio and test facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, under contract with UT-Battelle as operator of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
http://www.centrusenergy.com/american-centrifuge-investing-today-long-term-competitiveness
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Board of Directors
+Daniel B. Poneman is president and chief executive officer of Centrus Energy Corp. He also serves on the company’s board of directors.
From 2009 to 2014, Mr. Poneman was the Deputy Secretary of Energy, also serving as the chief operating officer of the U.S. Department of Energy. His responsibilities spanned the range of US energy policies and programs – hydrocarbons, renewables, nuclear, and efficiency – including cybersecurity, project management, national security, and international cooperation. He was also responsible for the Department’s efforts on resilience and emergency response, in cases ranging from Fukushima to Hurricane Sandy. Between April 23, 2013, and May 21, 2013, Mr. Poneman served as Acting Secretary of Energy.
Prior to assuming his responsibilities as Deputy Secretary, Mr. Poneman served as a principal of the Scowcroft Group for eight years, providing strategic advice to corporations in a variety of strategic industries. In addition, for eight years he practiced law as a partner at Hogan & Hartson and an associate at Covington & Burling, advising clients on regulatory and policy matters.
In prior tours in government, Mr. Poneman served as a White House Fellow and as Director of Defense Policy and Arms Control for the National Security Council. From 1993 through 1996 he was Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls at the National Security Council. His responsibilities included the development and implementation of U.S. policy in such areas as peaceful nuclear cooperation, missile technology, space-launch activities, sanctions determinations, chemical and biological arms control efforts, and conventional arms transfer policy.
Mr. Poneman has published widely on national security issues and is the author of Nuclear Power in the Developing World and Argentina: Democracy on Trial. His third book, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis (coauthored with Joel Wit and Robert Gallucci), received the 2005 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on American Diplomacy. Mr. Poneman is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, a Distinguished Fellow at the Paulson Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Poneman received A.B. and J.D. degrees with honors from Harvard University and an M.Litt. in Politics from Oxford University.
Centrus Energy Corp. (NYSE MKT: LEU) is a trusted supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants in the United States and around the world.
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