Higher-enriched uranium for datacenters has DoE all aglow
The US Department of Energy has selected a new participant for a program aimed at expanding the domestic supply of fuel for next-generation nuclear reactors.
However, we shouldn't expect that to mean the US' ever-growing fleet of datacenters will be powered by low-carbon nuclear energy any time soon.
Utah-based Nusano announced on Monday that the DoE had selected it for its Nuclear Energy Launch Pad Program designed to help companies commercialize their nuclear power concepts.
In this case, Nusano is working on a new method of creating high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, fuel that’s required for most next-generation nuclear reactors, like small modular reactors (SMRs) and molten salt reactors.
HALEU is defined as uranium enay, low-riched to between 5 and 20 weight percent of U-235, the primary fissile isotope that nuclear reactors use to generate power.
Traditional nuclear reactors use low-enriched uranium of under five percent.
The higher enrichment is needed for smaller, more efficient reactor designs that are currently under development.
Several advanced reactor demonstrations in the US have reached zero-power criticality, but none is yet operating commercially.
The US has been without a steady commercial-scale supply of HALEU for years, with Russia historically the main commercial supplier and China also possessing HALEU enrichment capability.
As of 2026, there’s only a single company in the US actively producing HALEU, and it’s not Nusano.
The DoE has signed agreements with several others to produce more HALEU and related fuel products, but those firms are still establishing their facilities, and production remains minuscule.
Centrus, the only American company producing HALEU, has generated less than two metric tons since it signed a contract with the government in 2019.
The competition heats up Nusano expects to blow Centrus’ meager fuel generation out of the water with its HALEU enrichment design.
That said, the company’s design hasn’t actually been realized yet.
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.theregister.com — the content belongs to The Register.
