The National Nuclear Security Administration has released a sources sought note seeking information about a new uranium reserve program that Congress earlier this year ordered the agency to establish.
According to the note, the reserve would be a stockpile of uranium hexafluoride converted from newly produced, domestic natural uranium acquired from deposits at existing sites. The government will acquire the uranium hexafluoride and store it at a facility somewhere in the U.S.
Respondents should not propose that the new reserve “initiate or expand mining on Tribal lands, expand the [DOE] Office of Legacy Management’s (LM) Uranium Leasing Program, or expand access to additional uranium deposits located on other Federal lands,” the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) wrote in the sources sought.
The agency also does not want to acquire uranium hexafluoride produced by enricher underfeeding: collecting tailings leftover from uranium enrichment and re-enriching them to produce the desired concentration of uranium-235 atoms.
Interested parties have until sept. 13 to respond to the request for information about the uranium reserve.
Congress ordered the NNSA to spearhead planning for the uranium reserve in the 2021 omnibus spending bill that funded the entire federal government. Lawmakers appropriated $75 million for the uranium reserve within NNSA’s Weapons Activities budget.
DOE did not request any more funds for the uranium reserve in 2022, and new spending bills working their way through Congress do not contain any such funding for the spending year that starts Oct. 1.
In creating the uranium reserve, lawmakers directed the NNSA to work with DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy and consider whether the program could be consolidated “with other existing uranium management activities within the Department to create efficiencies,” according to an explanatory statement accompanying the 2021 federal omnibus spending bill.
