The Department of Energy announced that it has put forward a $2.7 billion effort to bolster the nation’s domestic uranium enrichment services over the next decade.
“In support of President Trump’s commitment to enhance energy security and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, the historic investment expands U.S. capacity for low-enriched uranium (LEU) and jumpstarts new supply chains and innovations for high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) to create American jobs and usher in the nation’s nuclear renaissance,” the agency explained in a press release.
Last year, the DOE signed contracts with six companies for LEU and HALEU enrichment. The new awards allow the United States to move away from foreign uranium and diversify its domestic supply.
“President Trump is catalyzing a resurgence in the nation’s nuclear energy sector to strengthen American security and prosperity,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “Today’s awards show that this Administration is committed to restoring a secure domestic nuclear fuel supply chain capable of producing the nuclear fuels needed to power the reactors of today and the advanced reactors of tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, a South Dakota uranium-mining project has been approved for accelerated permitting. Similarly, a mine in Utah is under review. Should the mine be approved, the project would “produce uranium and vanadium by accessing the old Velvet Mine workings and developing the Velvet-Wood mineralization,” the Department of the Interior explained in May. The plan would “result in only three acres of new surface disturbance given the proposed underground mining plan and the existing surface disturbance from the old Velvet mine.”
The domestic uranium boost stands in support of President Donald Trump’s March order directing an increase in American mineral production, which noted that the United States “was once the world’s largest producer of lucrative minerals, but overbearing Federal regulation has eroded our Nation’s mineral production.”
