The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today made conditional commitments to provide high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to five U.S. nuclear developers to meet their near-term fuel needs. This first round of HALEU allocations brings innovative American nuclear technologies one step closer to commercialization and will expand the use of nuclear energy to deliver more secure, affordable, and reliable energy to the American people.
“The Trump Administration is unleashing all sources of affordable, reliable and secure American energy – and this includes accelerating the deployment of advanced nuclear reactors,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said. “Allocating this HALEU material will help U.S. nuclear developers deploy their advanced reactors with materials sourced from secure supply chains, marking an important step forward in President Trump’s program to revitalize America’s nuclear sector.”
Many advanced reactors will need HALEU to achieve smaller designs, longer operating cycles, and increased efficiencies over current technologies, but HALEU is not currently available from domestic suppliers.
To help fill this gap, DOE created the HALEU allocation process for nuclear developers to request HALEU material from DOE sources, including material from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). DOE received HALEU requests from 15 companies. For this first round, DOE identified five of those companies that met prioritization criteria, with three of them requiring fuel delivery in 2025.
The five companies that received conditional commitments are:
• TRISO-X, LLC.
• Kairos Power, LLC.
• Radiant Industries, Inc.
• Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC
• TerraPower, LLC.
The allocated HALEU supports both Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program (ARDP) Pathway 1 award recipients, companies planning to demonstrate in the DOME test bed, along with some ARDP risk reduction awardees – reinforcing DOE’s commitment to our industry partnerships.
As a next step, DOE will initiate the contracting process to allocate the material to the five companies, some of which could receive their HALEU as early as this fall. The allocation process is ongoing, and DOE plans to continue HALEU allocations to additional companies in the future.
The first round of conditional commitments of HALEU were made through the HALEU Availability Program, which was established in 2020 to secure a domestic supply of HALEU for civilian domestic research, development, demonstration, and commercial use.
Learn more about DOE’s HALEU Availability Program at HALEU Availability Program | Department of Energy.
Source: U.S. DOE
