Global 2026 draws attention to nuclear fuel developments

Last week in Chicago, the American Nuclear Society's Fuel Cycle & Waste Management Division hosted Global 2026, where it was abundantly clear that there are many exciting fuel-related developments in the nuclear power industry. Developments announced last week run the gamut of the fuel cycle, including enrichment, fabrication, and recycling and reprocessing.

Urenco's facility expansion: On August 18, Urenco USA held a ground-breaking ceremony for the expansion of its National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, N.M. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright joined Urenco CEO Boris Schucht and other company leaders at the event.

Urenco USA plans to expand capacity at the facility by nearly 50 percent, with a focus on the enhanced production of low-enriched uranium. The company is installing 2.1 million separative work units of new enrichment capacity, based on its gas-centrifuge enrichment technology, in 24 cascades of centrifuges. The first new cascades are scheduled to start production in 2032, with additional cascades to be installed through 2036.

LIST begins site work for LEU-3 facility: Laser uranium enrichment company LIS Technologies has commenced initial site-preparation work for its 206-acre LIST Island, in the East Tennessee Technology Park Heritage Center of Oak Ridge, the former site of the Manhattan Project-era K-25 gaseous diffusion plant.

Officially called the LEU-3 Facility, LIST Island will serve as the company's commercial laser-based uranium enrichment headquarters and technical campus. It will house the company's Project F.U.E.L. (Future Uranium Enrichment with Lasers) operations and research activities. Initial site work will include comprehensive environmental assessments and site-specific technical feasibility studies, which will inform the subsequent steps of LIS Technologies' $1.38 billion investment to redevelop the area.

Radiant, Standard Nuclear reach fuel agreement: Microreactor developer Radiant has signed a fuel supply agreement with Standard Nuclear for TRISO fuel fabrication to support the planned delivery of Radiant's 1-MW Kaleidos units to government and commercial customers through the early 2030s.

According to the new agreement, Standard Nuclear will supply Radiant with TRISO fuel manufactured to meet specifications for Kaleidos. Radiant stated that the agreement strengthens its "fully owned end-to-end supply chain for Kaleidos production as the company advances full-scale testing, domestic manufacturing and customer deployments."

Nano, Quadrant make HALEU agreement: Reactor developer Nano Nuclear Energy and Quadrant Nuclear Industries have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a nonbinding framework for collaboration on the supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel. According to the MOU, Nano and QNI will engage in discussions regarding the potential supply and long-term offtake of HALEU produced at a facility QNI plans to build at Idaho National Laboratory.

The facility, called Vanguard, is part of QNI's efforts to develop an integrated HALEU production capability in coordination with the Department of Energy and other stakeholders.

The companies stated that their collaboration "reflects a shared commitment to strengthening the domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, accelerating deployment of advanced reactors, including Nano Nuclear's Kronos MMR Energy System, and supporting U.S. energy security and decarbonization objectives."

GE Vernova, Shine partner on AI-based fuel project: Fusion energy company Shine is partnering with GE Vernova "on a project to develop a modernized and more efficient system to track spent fuel throughout the recycling process," the company said. Led by GE Vernova's Advanced Research Center and funded by the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) division, the project will use artificial intelligence to optimize spent nuclear fuel tracking and measurement at recycling facilities.

The partnership will focus on the development of Monochromatic Assays Yielding Enhanced Reliability (MAYER), a technology meant to track and measure nuclear material in real time as it flows through a recycling facility. The gathered data could be fed into a virtual digital twin, which would be used to strengthen security safeguards and reduce operating costs.

Shine-Argonne-Case Western collab: Argonne National Laboratory and Case Western Reserve University are also partnering with Shine Technologies to apply Argonne's Packed Centrifugal Equipment for Radiochemical Separation (PACERS) chemical separation technology to the nuclear fuel recycling process on which the company is working. PACERS can be used in multiple separation processes, including those that separate strontium-90 and americium-241 radioisotopes for medical, manufacturing, and advanced energy purposes.

The collaboration is being funded through ARPA-E's Converting UNF Radioisotopes Into Energy (CURIE) Program and is being led by Case Western Reserve University.

ASP Isotopes investigates uranium conversion: ASP Isotopes subsidiary Quantum Leap Energy has announced that it is evaluating opportunities in Namibia regarding uranium conversion, the process between mining and enrichment in which uranium concentrate is converted to uranium hexafluoride.

Quantum Leap began the evaluation with a public environmental and social impact assessment and a consultation process for a proposed pilot-scale hydrofluorination and fluorination facility in the Walvis Bay area of Namibia, which would be used to develop, test, and demonstrate hydrofluorination and fluorination processes for metals.

ASP Isotopes established Quantum Leap to focus on uranium conversion; enrichment of uranium-235 for production of HALEU, LEU, and LEU+ fuels; isotopic separation of lithium-6 and lithium-7; and radioactive waste treatment technologies.