Another Contract To The Silicon Valley Boys

The Department of Energy just awarded four contracts for enriching uranium up to what they call HALEU status. That’s high-assay low-enriched uranium, enriched to 5 to 20 percent, just up to the cutoff for weapons-grade. Some of the new reactors being designed will need HALEU. If you want a smaller reactor, higher enrichment is one way to get it.

This is a forward-looking contract, although there is some pressure to have HALEU available within the next few years. “[A]nother critical step by President Biden and Vice President Harris to bolster America’s energy and national security, achieve a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, and build a strong, reliable domestic nuclear fuel supply chain free of influence from adversarial foreign nations.”

Four contracts were awarded:

• Louisiana Energy Services operates the URENCO plant in Eunice, New Mexico, the onlly commercial enrichment plant operating in the US, which is currently being expanded. URENCO is a European company.
• Centrus was spun off from governmental enrichment operations. It currently operates US-style centrifuges (40 feet tall versus the more common 4-6 feet) and is producing HALEU. It appears from the few reports available that American Centrifuge Operating will manufacture centrifuges for them under this program.
• Orano Federal Services is the US branch of what is essentially the French federal nuclear program. They have experience in enrichment, but no plant in the US.
• General Matter. I have placed their entire website in the header picture. Rumor has it that they have offered laser enrichment. Nobody seems to know anything about them.

Louisiana Energy Services, Centrus, and Orano Federal Services are obvious choices if you follow this industry. General Matter is a newbie. Here’s the best an industry news magazine can give us:

According to publicly available information, General Matter Inc is a company that was registered in California earlier this year, with Scott Nolan named as its CEO. Nolan, a former SpaceX employee, is a partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund which was co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.

On 30 September, the Financial Times reported that Founders Fund was backing a nuclear start-up seeking to create a new production method for HEU. Citing “people familiar with the matter”, the newspapersaid the venture was “at an early stage but is already staffed by nuclear industry veterans and SpaceX engineers”.

So: No equipment, a bunch of people who may or may not know what they are doing, no organization, no transparency. The good side is that if it’s laser enrichment, they are likely to fail. The not so good side is that our tax money will support Peter Thiel and Elon Musk in developing yet another capability affecting our national security.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner