The U.S. Department of Energy has finalized a deal for Centrus Energy Corp. to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel for nuclear reactors by building a new all-domestic enrichment cascade — technology that could one day contribute to national defense.
The Bethesda, Md.-based company, the former U.S. Enrichment Corp., announced the news in a press release early Tuesday. The company started work on May 31 on the 16-machine cascade of AC100-M centrifuges at DOE’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio, under an undefinitized contract with the agency’s Office of Nuclear Energy.
The deal, announced in January, is a no-fee, cost-sharing arrangement worth roughly $115 million, including two years of firm funding and one option year. The Energy Department was to release about $35 million in funding by December, according to a copy of the undefinitized contract that Centrus released over the summer.
In all, Centrus is under contract to produce 600 kilograms of high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel by June 1, 2020. The fuel, which would include about 20% uranium-235, could help the Office of Nuclear Energy further develop so-called “advanced” nuclear reactor designs for commercial markets.
Most of the work in the first year or so of Centrus’ contract involves procuring subassemblies for the 16 centrifuges and delivering them by Dec. 15, 2020, to Portsmouth’s Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant: the building that once housed the company’s now-canceled American Centrifuge Project.
The American Centrifuge Project, canned during the Barack Obama administration, was an industrial demonstration of AC100-heritage technology that, unlike the cascade now under construction, included some non-U.S. components. These rendered the machines ineligible to enrich defense uranium.
The Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will in 2038 require a new source of low-enriched uranium in order to create tritium needed to maintain the explosive power of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. As part of an analysis of alternatives slated to wrap up in December, the weapons agency is considering using Centrus AC-100 series technology for this purpose.
Centrus is due to report its third-quarter earnings after market close Thursday. The company then plans to host an investor conference call Friday morning.
