The Department of Energy in December plans to start a competition for a long-term contract to purchase energy-dense uranium fuel, with an eye toward awarding a deal in July, the agency told prospective bidders last week.
In slides briefed during an Oct. 13 industry day and published online subsequently, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy said it planned to publish a draft solicitation for its 10-year High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) Supply contract in December and a final solicitation in March.
The office targets an award only about four months after the final solicitation drops, according to the slides.
The prospective 10-year contract would include a four-year base period covering design and regulatory approvals and six years of options that run through Dec. 30, 2032, according to the slides. DOE plans to buy 25 metric tons of HALEU in each of the six options. The first of these option years will notionally begin in Dec. 30, 2027, the agency said.
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — President Joe Biden’s signature domestic policy bill that Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill passed without any Republican votes — Congress provided some $700 million for DOE to create a domestic supply of advanced nuclear fuel.
Russia has historically provided most of the world’s HALEU.
In the U.S., which no longer has any purely domestic uranium enrichment facilities, both civilian nuclear power and national security have some stake in HALEU production.
Most advanced nuclear reactors on the drawing board require HALEU fuel, and the enrichment facilities that would produce HALEU could in theory be used to create all-domestic fuel, metal and other forms of uranium for nuclear weapons and warships.
Centrus Energy Corp., Bethesda, Md., is building a 16-machine HALEU cascade at DOE’s Portsmouth Site near Piketon, Ohio. The cascade, which Centrus has nearly completed, includes foreign parts that preclude the company from using it to enrich uranium for weapons and Navy programs.
However, the facility’s construction provided Centrus with a supply-chain bug-shake of sorts as DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration gears up to pick a core technology for the U.S.’ next defense-usable, all-domestic enrichment facility.
The semiautonomous nuclear-weapons agency has said it needs new low-enriched uranium by the late 2040s to produce nuclear fuel for the Navy and new highly enriched uranium during or after the 2050s.
