Nusano releases Launch Pad enrichment project details

At the end of August, Utah-based company Nusano was chosen as one of the second-round selections by the National Reactor Innovation Center for a project through its Nuclear Energy Launch Pad.

Yesterday, the company announced the details of that project, which will focus on high-assay low-enrichment uranium production. This turn to enrichment comes as the company continues to develop a radioisotope production facility in Utah.

Project details: According to Nusano, through Launch Pad, it will "develop its direct metallization HALEU nuclear fuel production line." While the company has not yet stated where its NRIC-backed project will be based, it did state that it is participating specifically in the Launch Pad USA program.

The Launch Pad program is divided into two tracks: INL and USA. Projects in the INL track will deploy their projects at a designated campus on Idaho National Laboratory land. The USA track "involves distributed demonstration sites across the United States. Any suitable location outside of INL is available," according to NRIC director Brad Tomer, who explained the delineation between the two in a Q&A with Nuclear News in June.

The enrichment technology Nusano is aiming to deploy departs significantly from those currently being developed and used elsewhere in the sector. Today, most uranium on its way to becoming fuel goes through a process that involves converting yellowcake (U₃O₈) to uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) gas, increasing the concentration of uranium-235 by spinning it through a series of centrifuges and then deconverting that gas back into a solid.

In contrast, Nusano's process cuts fluoridated gas out of the picture. As the company explains, uranium feedstock is converted to metal before enrichment, after which Nusano would apply "proprietary separation techniques to separate atoms by mass."

The separation techniques at play are not detailed by the company. However, Nusano says that this technology would allow for the enrichment of natural uranium to 19.75 percent U-235-the effective upper limit for HALEU-in a single-pass process. The company also added that a single enrichment unit, capable of producing 5.9 metric tons of HALEU per year, would require only 1,200 square feet.

While several technology and siting questions still linger, the company said its first unit is scheduled to be operational in 2031.

Other enrichers: Nusano is far from the only company enjoying direct support from the Department of Energy to stand up new domestic enrichment capacity. In January of this year, the DOE awarded the following funds:

• A $900 million task order to American Centrifuge Operating (a Centrus Energy subsidiary) to develop new domestic HALEU production capacity. The company currently uses a gas centrifuge process in a single cascade to produce HALEU at its plant in Piketon, Ohio.
• A $900 million task order to General Matter, another company planning to use gas centrifuge technology, to develop new HALEU capacity. The company plans to build an enrichment facility at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion plant in Kentucky.
• A $900 million task order to Orano Federal Services to build new low-enriched uranium enrichment capacity. Another gas centrifuge user, the company aims to deploy its technology in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
• A $28.5 million task order to Global Laser Enrichment to build new LEU enrichment capacity. Unlike its competitors, GLE's process achieves the separation of U-235 from UF₆ by way of laser excitation. GLE aims to use its technology to reenrich uranium tails at Paducah.

Last month at the Global 2026 conference, leaders from Centrus, General Matter, and GLE, along with Urenco (which currently operates the only commercial LEU enrichment facility in the country) talked at length about the current landscape of domestic enrichment.