Orano Enrichment USA has requested a US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) license to build and operate a new Uranium enrichment facility, named Project IKE. It will be constructed near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This project is part of a broader national effort to rebuild America’s domestic nuclear fuel supply chain amid growing concerns over reliance on foreign enrichment services.

The NRC intends to complete its technical review within 12 months. The accelerated timeline reflects the agency’s broader push to modernize its licensing processes under Executive Order 14300. The evaluation will include a detailed safety and security assessment and environmental review to ensure the proposed facility meets NRC requirements for protecting public health and the environment.

Output from the facility

Uranium enrichment is critical to the production of fuel for U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, which currently provide up to 20% of its electricity requirements.

Orano’s facility will use gas centrifuge technology to produce up to 10 percent enriched Uranium, for commercial nuclear power plants in the US. The gas centrifuge technology uses the Uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) gas, which is spun at high speeds in a centrifuge, separating lighter U-235 from heavier U-238 isotopes due to their slight mass difference.

The facility has a planned maximum target production of 7.4 million separative work units (SWUs) per year. Upon license approval construction would commence in 2028, it will remain operational for a 40 years.

Technologies for Uranium enrichment

Historically several enrichment processes have been demonstrated in the laboratory, but only two, the gaseous diffusion process and the centrifuge process, have operated on a commercial scale. Gaseous centrifuge is the only enrichment process currently used in LEU enrichment facilities.

Laser Isotope Separation (LIS) is an emerging enrichment technology. It uses finely tuned lasers to selectively excite and separate U-235 atoms based on their unique atomic or molecular properties. The potential advantages relative to gas centrifuge is higher energy-efficiency and compactness as well as higher enrichment precision and scalability.

LIS can be employed using AVLIS (Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation), MLIS (Molecular Laser Isotope Separation), and SILEX (Separation of Isotopes by Laser Excitation, undergoing commercial demonstration in the U.S).

Strategic importance

“NRC is safely enabling America’s efforts to reduce U.S. dependency on foreign
enrichment,” Chairman Ho K. Nieh said.

The United States commercial nuclear reactors collectively require approximately 15 million separative work units (MSWU) of enriched Uranium per year. Currently, the United States is not self-sufficient and is heavily dependent on Russian SWU. The U.S. imports approximately 22-27% of its enriched uranium from Russia, making it the largest foreign supplier of nuclear fuel to the U.S

The U.S. Congress bill limiting the importation of Uranium from Russia became a law on May 13, 2024. The law specifically bans unirradiated low-enriched Uranium that is produced in Russia or by a Russian entity from being imported into the United States. No Russian enriched Uranium product will be available to U.S. utilities after 2028.