The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

What moved in the nuclear fuel cycle this week

Home • Top Stories • October 22, 2026

This week

All of this week’s items fall on the front end of the fuel cycle: enrichment, fuel making, and the depleted uranium that enrichment leaves behind. Each was kept because it records a durable fact. Entries run newest first. Each gives what the source reported, the constraint the announcement left out, and the context and history behind it.

Westinghouse will build an LEU+ fuel factory in South Carolina

October 21, 2026. Westinghouse Electric Company · The Front End

What was reported. Westinghouse said it is investing about $1 billion in a new factory at its Columbia Fuel Fabrication Facility in Hopkins, South Carolina, to make fuel enriched to between 5 and 8 percent uranium-235. Construction is under way; the company plans to start operating in 2030.

What it left out. A fuel factory does not enrich uranium. It turns enriched uranium hexafluoride into oxide powder, pellets, rods and assemblies, so its output depends on enrichers delivering material above 5 percent. Urenco USA’s plant in New Mexico was authorized to enrich to 10 percent in September 2025. The release says nothing about licensing for the new building. Each reactor that loads the fuel will also need its own approval.

The rest of the story. In April 2025 four Westinghouse lead test assemblies, enriched to as much as 6 percent, were loaded into Vogtle Unit 2. Global Nuclear Fuel’s plant at Wilmington, North Carolina, was licensed in February 2024 to make fuel up to 8 percent, and in September 2026 Framatome announced a contract for a reload above 5 percent. The Hopkins, S.C., plant would make such fuel at fleet scale. Beyond Five Percent.

Y-12 meets its HALEU targets early

October 19, 2026. Y-12 National Security Complex · The Front End

What was reported. The Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge said it met the National Nuclear Security Administration’s HALEU demand ahead of schedule in fiscal years 2025 and 2026. It makes HALEU metal for research reactors and for targets that produce molybdenum-99. In early fiscal 2026 it sent HALEU oxide to Standard Nuclear for fabrication into TRISO fuel for Radiant, with testing planned at Idaho National Laboratory.

What it left out. The material comes from processing stored uranium and scrap, not from new enrichment, and Y-12 says it is not producing for commercial power. The release gives no quantities. It supports research reactors, medicine and a few reactor demonstrations, not a commercial fleet.

The rest of the story. According to Y-12, its HALEU fuels about 80 percent of research reactors outside Russia and China, and its molybdenum-99 targets support about 78 percent of nuclear medicine procedures worldwide. Supplying HALEU in place of highly enriched uranium lowers the proliferation risk of those reactors. Idaho National Laboratory has a second recovered supply: just under 10 tonnes of HALEU from the spent fuel of its old EBR-II reactor, due by the end of 2028.

A deconversion license changes hands, on paper

October 19, 2026. Radnostix (formerly International Isotopes) and NANO Nuclear · The Front End

What was reported. Radnostix and NANO Nuclear asked the NRC to consent to transferring license SUB-1011 to a NANO subsidiary. The license covers a plant in Lea County, New Mexico, planned to deconvert depleted UF₆ and recover its fluorine. NRC consent is a condition of closing the sale agreed on September 28, 2026.

What it left out. The plant was never built. The license concerns depleted uranium, the tails left over from enrichment. It is a source-material license under Part 40 of the NRC’s rules, not a license to enrich uranium or to make fuel. The filing is a letter of intent; the formal application is still to come.

The rest of the story. DOE’s deconversion plants at Paducah and Portsmouth were designed to handle 31,500 tonnes of depleted UF₆ a year; their best year, 2014, was about 22,600 tonnes. The Lea County design paired deconversion with fluorine extraction, on a site of about 640 acres. NANO says the assets would advance its own fuel-cycle plans by several years.

A HALEU joint venture is planned at Pelindaba

October 15, 2026, reported October 19. Quantum Leap Energy and Necsa · The Front End

What was reported. Quantum Leap Energy, a subsidiary of ASP Isotopes, and Necsa signed a binding heads of agreement for a joint venture to build and run a test bench and a commercial-scale HALEU plant at Necsa’s Pelindaba site near Pretoria. The company says TerraPower supply agreements already cover the expected output.

What it left out. The announcement gives no capacity, enrichment level, product form or schedule. It describes ASP’s two processes but does not say which the plant will use. By ASP’s own account, neither process has yet enriched uranium.

The rest of the story. ASP’s aerodynamic process traces back to South Africa’s Helikon vortex-tube plant, which enriched uranium for the Koeberg reactors in the 1980s. The process has since enriched silicon-28 to 98 percent. ASP’s 2025 agreements with TerraPower provide for up to 150 tonnes of HALEU from 2028 through 2037, from a planned plant of about 15 tonnes of uranium a year. The first uranium test at Pelindaba is the next milestone to watch.

NRC approves a security plan for a laser enrichment test facility

October 15, 2026. LIS Technologies · The Front End

What was reported. The NRC approved LIS Technologies’ plan for protecting classified information at its test facility in Oak Ridge, where it is developing a laser enrichment process called CRISLA-4G. The approval came a week after the company announced its first shipment of UF₆ there. The plan takes full effect after an NRC operational readiness review.

What it left out. This is a security approval, not a license to enrich uranium. The release reports no enrichment result. CRISLA is a molecular process, so UF₆ goes in and UF₆ comes out, which fits the existing fuel chain.

The rest of the story. CRISLA was devised by Jeff Eerkens in the 1970s, and LIS Technologies bought CRISLA, Inc. in August 2023. It is one of two laser methods that act on UF₆ molecules; the other is SILEX. In January 2026 Tennessee announced that LIS plans a $1.38 billion commercial enrichment plant at Oak Ridge. The company also holds a place on DOE’s enrichment contract for low-enriched uranium, under which orders may be placed.

Portsmouth passes 4,500 depleted uranium cylinders

October 13, 2026. US Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management · The Front End

What was reported. The Department of Energy said its Portsmouth site in Ohio has converted the depleted UF₆ from 4,500 old cylinders into uranium oxide powder. That is more than a fifth of the site’s stock; the site once held more than 20,000 cylinders. The plant beat its goal for fiscal 2026 two months early.

What it left out. The count is in cylinders, not tonnes. Portsmouth and Paducah together hold about 800,000 tonnes of depleted UF₆, and the oxide is shipped to a licensed disposal site.

The rest of the story. Conversion also yields hydrofluoric acid, which DOE sells to industry to offset costs. Part of the stock is now treated as a resource. In 2016 DOE agreed to sell about 300,000 tonnes of its richer depleted UF₆ to Global Laser Enrichment, to be enriched again over roughly forty years. DOE’s 2019 baseline put the end of conversion at both sites in 2054.

Urenco USA starts its sixth new cascade

October 8, 2026. Urenco USA · The Front End

What was reported. Urenco USA started production in the sixth of eight new centrifuge cascades at its plant in Eunice, New Mexico. Together the eight add 700,000 separative work units a year. The seventh is due later this year and the eighth in spring 2027. The plant’s existing capacity is 4.3 million SWU a year.

What it left out. The plant is authorized to 10 percent, which covers LEU+ but not HALEU. The release does not say how much of the new capacity will run above 5 percent. A larger expansion is not due to start construction until 2029.

The rest of the story. On September 30, 2025, Urenco USA became the first commercial enricher authorized by the NRC to produce LEU+, with first deliveries to a fuel fabricator planned for 2026. The plant meets about a third of U.S. demand for enriched uranium, and Urenco aims for more than 7 million SWU within a decade. Assay is set by how the cascades are run, not by how many are installed. Beyond Five Percent.

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Notes

1. Westinghouse Electric Company, “Westinghouse Announces Landmark Expansion in South Carolina to Advance Next-Generation Nuclear Fuel,” October 21, 2026.

2. Y-12 National Security Complex, “Y-12 fuels research and medicine,” October 19, 2026.

3. Radnostix, Inc. and NANO Nuclear Energy, joint letter of intent to NRC for license SUB-1011, October 19, 2026.

4. World Nuclear News, “Joint venture to produce HALEU in South Africa,” October 19, 2026; Quantum Leap Energy release, October 15, 2026.

5. LIS Technologies Inc., NRC Standard Practice Procedures Plan approval, October 15, 2026.

6. US Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management, Portsmouth DUF6 conversion milestone, October 13, 2026.

7. Urenco USA, sixth cascade start, October 8, 2026.