The National Nuclear Security Administration announced Monday it awarded a BWX Technologies subsidiary a contract to evaluate options for a pilot plant for domestically enriched uranium.
Nuclear Fuel Services, the BWX Technologies (BWXT) subsidiary that manufactures fuel material for naval nuclear reactors in Erwin, Tenn., would complete the yearlong engineering study as part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) as part of the $3.3 million contract.
According to a press release by BWXT, Oak Ridge National Laboratory manages the DUECE program which aims to develop uranium enrichment technology and information for national security purposes. Oak Ridge’s DUECE program is one of two domestic uranium enrichment options, alongside Centrus Energy Corp.’s AC-100M, that NNSA had been considering for its defense-enrichment plant.
The contract would require the BWXT subsidiary to write a plan for testing the defense uranium-enrichment technology that Oak Ridge developed and inform the NNSA on what the pilot plant’s capabilities and costs are. According to the statement of work that came with the solicitation, the final product would be in the form of a report of options for conducting the project.
According to the requirements listed in the study’s solicitation, NNSA expects the second of two planned DUECE demonstrations to complete in fiscal year 2029, which runs through Sept. 30, 2029. The hope from the DOE is that it starts domestically enriching uranium by the 2030s.