The Department of Energy picked three companies on Monday to receive $2.7 billion for domestic uranium enrichment ahead of a 2028 deadline to cut off Russian imports of nuclear power plant fuel.
American companies Centrus Energy and General Matter and French enrichment giant Orano will get $900 million each in congressionally appropriated funds, according to a press release, with $28 million for North Carolina’s Global Laser Enrichment. Of the winners, only Orano currently enriches uranium at a commercial scale.
The delicate U.S. nuclear fuel industry is racing to supply the power for a surge in artificial intelligence data centers. But its potential renaissance is running up against a phased-in congressional ban on nuclear fuel imports from Russia.
The U.S. produces only 30 percent of the enriched uranium it needs for its 94 reactors through a single plant in New Mexico. The U.S. and most Western countries are reliant on imports from Russia, and there is not enough non-Russian enrichment to fuel the world’s reactors.
