The Biden administration announced new contracts to buy low-enriched uranium from domestic sources, a move intended to reduce reliance on foreign suppliers and bolster national energy security.
The contracts were awarded to U.S.-based producers as part of a broader effort to strengthen the domestic nuclear fuel supply chain. The Department of Energy will acquire the low-enriched uranium, or LEU, generated in the U.S. through either new enrichment facilities or projects that expand their existing capacity.
“These contracts generated from this action will help spur the safe and responsible build-out of uranium enrichment capacity in the United States,” Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Michael Goff said in a statement. “We must increase our capacity to produce enriched uranium domestically to support the energy security and resilience of the Nation.”
The incentive to build out new uranium production capacity in the U.S. will further promote the support of clean energy and decrease the United States’ dependency on Russian uranium imports, which have historically been a significant source of LEU.
Nuclear power provides 20% of U.S. electricity and over half of the nation’s carbon-free energy, according to the department, and plays a critical role in the administration’s attempt to transition to clean energy.
The department reports Russia holds about 44% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity while supplying about 35% of U.S. imports for nuclear fuel.
President Joe Biden previously signed H.R.1042, the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, which banned the import of LEU from Russia and went into effect on Aug. 11, 2024.
The DOE selected six companies to compete for future work in the supply of LEU. The companies include American Centrifuge Operating LLC, General Matter Inc., Global Laser Enrichment LLC, Louisiana Energy Services LLC, Laser Isotope Separation Technologies Inc., and Orano Federal Services LLC.
“Centrus is proud to be leading the effort to restore America’s ability to enrich uranium – with American technology, built by American workers,” Centrus President and CEO Amir Vexler said in a statement. “This, along with our prior two awards, is the next step towards creating a public-private partnership to expand our enrichment capacity in Ohio to meet the full range of America’s commercial and national security requirements for enriched uranium.”
American Centrifuge Operating LLC is owned by Centrus Energy and one of the six awardees announced for the LEU production with a minimum contract value of $2 million and a maximum value of $3.4 billion for all awardees over a ten-year period.
In 2023, U.S. nuclear power plants generated 775 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and U.S. reactors remain the world’s largest producer of nuclear energy.
