Collaboration aims to expand domestic HALEU production for TerraPower reactor
Nuclear

Collaboration aims to expand domestic HALEU production for TerraPower reactor

TerraPower and Centrus Energy are expanding their collaboration aimed at establishing commercial-scale, domestic HALEU production capabilities to supply TerraPower’s Natrium reactor and energy storage system.

According to a signed MOU, the two companies will establish a cost-competitive and timely source of enrichment capacity at Centrus’ high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) production facility.

In June the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved Centrus’ request to make HALEU fuel at the Piketon, Ohio facility. The plant is now the only licensed HALEU production facility in the United States.

TerraPower says its Natrium technology is a 345 MW sodium-cooled fast reactor coupled with a molten salt-based integrated energy storage system that can boost power output to 500 MW for more than five and a half hours to serve peak demand. The demonstration Natrium reactor, to be located in Kemmerer, Wyoming, could be operational by 2030.