The Nuclear Fuel Cycle

As of 26 October 2026

Fifty years of promise, and what has actually been done with uranium

Home • The Front End • Laser Enrichment

Abstract

Chapter 6 of The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: A Complete Primer ends its account of laser enrichment with a plain statement: none of the laser technologies has operated at commercial scale. That is still true. What has changed is everything around it: a license application with its environmental review complete, a third-party readiness rating, a sales contract, and company filings that say plainly what has not yet been done.

This article asks how close any laser process is to enriching uranium for power reactors. It sorts each effort by what it has actually done to uranium, and keeps four things apart that the coverage often blurs: material enriched, licenses granted, contracts signed and figures that are still projections. Along the way it explains why the choice between the two laser families decides where a plant would sit in the fuel chain.

The Question

Laser enrichment has been just around the corner for half a century. The pitch has always been the same: tune a laser to the one isotope you want, and you can separate uranium with far less energy and in far smaller plants than the alternatives.

The question is how much of that has been shown with uranium, and how much is still on paper. Answering it means keeping three things separate: what a company has enriched, what a regulator has approved, and what a company expects to do.

What Enrichment Does

Start with what enrichment is for. Natural uranium is almost all uranium-238. Only about 0.7 percent is uranium-235, the isotope that keeps fission going in today’s reactors, and light-water reactor fuel needs a few percent [1]. Enrichment raises that share.

The work is measured in separative work units, or SWU, a measure of the effort needed to split a stream of uranium into an enriched product and a depleted remainder [1]. Plants are sized in SWU a year, and their energy use is given in kilowatt-hours per SWU.

Energy is where the methods differ most. The World Nuclear Association puts a modern centrifuge enrichment plant at about 40 to 50 kilowatt-hours per SWU [1]. The gaseous diffusion plants that centrifuges replaced used about fifty times as much. Table 1 gives the figures.

That is the bar a laser has to clear. Against diffusion, a laser’s energy saving would have been dramatic; against centrifuges the margin is much smaller, and none of the current developers reviewed here has published a measured energy figure for uranium to set against it.

The market a laser plant would enter is already large and crowded. World enrichment capacity was about 68 million SWU a year in 2025, and four suppliers, Rosatom, Urenco, CNNC and Orano, held nearly all of it [1].

TABLE 1. Energy use by enrichment method.

Method	Energy per SWU (kilowatt-hours)	Status
Gaseous diffusion	About 2,400 to 2,500 [1]	Retired
Aerodynamic processes (fast gas flows, no moving machinery)	More than 3,000 [1]	Demonstrated in the past; not in use
Helikon vortex-tube plant, South Africa	About 10,000 [1]	Operated in the early 1980s
Modern centrifuge	About 40 to 50 [1]	All commercial enrichment today
Laser, current developers	No measured figure published	Projections only

World capacity in 2025 was about 68 million SWU a year; suppliers other than the four largest held 355,000 SWU of it [1].

Two Families, Two Feed Forms

Laser methods come in two families, and the difference is what the light is aimed at: a free atom or a molecule. That choice decides what goes in, what comes out, and where a plant fits in the fuel chain.

Atomic vapor

In the atomic-vapor family, uranium metal is melted and boiled into a vapor. Lasers tuned to a sequence of frequencies knock an electron off uranium-235 atoms and leave uranium-238 alone. It works because the two isotopes absorb light at slightly different frequencies, about one part in a million apart [2].

An electric field then pulls the charged uranium-235 onto a product collector, while the neutral uranium-238 drifts on to a tails collector [2]. Lawrence Livermore’s AVLIS program and France’s SILVA program both worked this way [2] [1]. Metal goes in, and metal comes out.

Molecular

In the molecular family, the laser works on uranium hexafluoride (UF₆), the same gas centrifuge plants use. In the textbook version, infrared light excites the molecules that carry uranium-235 in a cold, fast jet of gas, and a second laser breaks them apart into a powder that drops out of the stream [2].

SILEX also uses infrared light on UF₆, but it may separate the isotopes differently. A 2016 analysis by Ryan Snyder in Science & Global Security describes the excited molecules being kept from condensing while the rest condense, rather than being broken apart [3]. Silex Systems says only that the process selectively excites the uranium-235 molecule; the details are classified [4]. CRISLA, the other molecular process in development, also works on UF₆ [5]. In this family, gas goes in and gas comes out.

Why the feed form matters

This sounds like a technical detail. It is not. Today’s fuel chain is built around UF₆: conversion plants make it, centrifuge plants enrich it, and fuel makers receive it. A molecular laser plant can slot into that chain with no new steps. The article Conversion and Deconversion on this site describes the few plants that make UF₆ and turn it back into a solid [50].

An atomic-vapor plant cannot. It needs uranium metal made for it upstream. Downstream, its product has to be turned back into UF₆ by fluorination to enter existing fuel lines, or be made straight into metallic fuel, or converted to oxide. The 1999 account of AVLIS’s end also noted that liquid uranium metal is harder and costlier to handle than UF₆ [6].

So when a developer says a metal route needs “no conversion”, read it carefully. The conversion step has moved somewhere else in the chain. It has not gone away.

The Programs That Stopped

Two national programs got as far as enriching uranium with lasers. Both stopped. What they did, and why they stopped, is the baseline for everything since.

AVLIS in the United States

Lawrence Livermore worked on AVLIS for 26 years. The federal government spent $1.8 billion on it before the United States Enrichment Corporation, USEC, was privatized, and USEC then spent about another $100 million [6].

On 9 June 1999 USEC’s board voted to stop. The company said its remaining technical problems would take at least another year to work through, that fixing them would push the plant past the earlier $2.5 billion estimate, and that the return was too low for the risk [6].

Silex Systems said at the time that SILEX was now the only laser technology USEC was considering [6]. The World Nuclear Association rounds the spending to about $2 billion and records AVLIS as abandoned in favor of SILEX [1]. That handoff is where today’s leading effort begins.

SILVA in France

France’s atomic-vapor program, SILVA, ended in 2003 after a four-year campaign that produced about 200 kilograms of uranium enriched to 2.5 percent [1]. It is a modest result, and it is still the only laser enrichment of uranium found for this article with both a quantity and an enrichment level on the public record.

Elsewhere

Not every program was public. Iran ran undeclared atomic-vapor experiments at Lashkar Ab’ad in 2002 and 2003, using 22 kilograms of natural uranium metal, and dismantled the facility in 2003 [9]. IAEA inspectors later judged that it could have produced small amounts of highly enriched uranium, although it never became fully operational [9].

R. Scott Kemp wrote in 2012 that at least 27 countries, Iran and North Korea among them, had experimented with laser enrichment [10]. No current public account of laser uranium programs in Russia, China, India, Korea or Japan was found for this article.

Who Is Trying Now

Four companies are active today. One, Global Laser Enrichment, has a license application under review. The others are earlier on, and two of them have not yet worked with uranium at all.

Global Laser Enrichment and SILEX

SILEX was invented in Sydney in the 1990s by Silex Systems scientists, and Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) was formed in 2007 to bring it to market [11]. Its transfer is governed by its own agreement between the United States and Australia, sent to Congress in November 1999 [12]. That agreement bars making highly enriched uranium without a further agreement and allows no enrichment plant in Australia without an amendment [12]. The two governments classified the technology in June 2001 [4].

Since a 2021 restructuring, GLE has been owned 51 percent by Silex Systems and 49 percent by Cameco [13]. Cameco has an option to take its stake to 75 percent [14].

GLE has been licensed before. In September 2012 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensed it to build and run a plant at Wilmington, North Carolina, rated at 6 million SWU a year and up to 8 percent uranium-235 [15]. The plant was never built.

The technology has run at pilot scale, with few results made public. GLE’s test loop at Wilmington started in July 2009. In April 2010 the company said the first phase had met its key performance criteria, without giving an enrichment level [16]. Table 2 lists the later steps.

The newest step is a readiness rating. Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) are the Department of Energy’s scale for how mature a technology is. Level 6 is a prototype shown to work in a relevant setting; level 7 is a prototype at or near full scale shown to work in an operating setting [19].

On 23 October 2025 Silex announced that a “Fortune 1000 technology provider”, which it did not name, had confirmed TRL-6 after more than six months of testing [18]. The announcement gave no quantity, enrichment level, throughput or energy figure [18]. The work is now aimed at TRL-7, with no date given [20]. A rating is a step forward. It is not a result anyone outside can check.

Silex is also using laser separation on a second element. It describes its Sydney plant for silicon-28, finished in June 2026 and still being commissioned, as the first laser-based enrichment plant for that isotope, with samples expected from early 2027 [20].

TABLE 2. GLE and the Paducah application: dated steps.

Date	Step
July 2009	Test loop at Wilmington begins operating [16]
April 2010	First phase reported to meet key performance criteria; no enrichment level published [16]
September 2012	NRC license for a Wilmington plant, 6 million SWU a year, up to 8 percent; not built [15]
May 2025	Large-scale TRL-6 testing begins; GLE expects “hundreds of kilograms” of enriched uranium; more than 13,000 hours of test-loop operation cited [17]
4 August 2025	NRC accepts the Paducah application, docket 70-7033, up to 8 percent [21]
23 October 2025	TRL-6 confirmed by an unnamed assessor [18]
December 2025	$5 million TRL-6 milestone payment from GLE to Silex [20]
January 2026	$28 million DOE award to GLE for next-generation enrichment [27]
27 March 2026	Draft environmental impact statement noticed: preliminary staff recommendation to issue the license; up to 40 years of operation on a site of about 130 hectares (322 acres) [22]
May 2026	Kentucky Resources Council petitions for a hearing [23]
July 2026	Licensing Board rules the petitioners lack standing; the council appeals [24]
26 August 2026	Commission removes the uncontested hearing and reopens the contested proceeding for procedure; appeal pending [25]
16 September 2026	Cameco agrees to buy all future Paducah production [26]
23 October 2026	GLE announces the NRC’s final environmental impact statement, recommending that the license be issued [47]
By end of 2026	Final safety evaluation expected by GLE [47]; the NRC’s March 2026 notice had projected January 2027, within a Commission goal of a decision within 30 months of acceptance [21]
First quarter of 2027	License expected by GLE and Silex [26] [48]
2030	Silex target for commercial operation [20]

The Paducah application

GLE’s commercial plan is the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility in Kentucky. The license it wants would allow enrichment up to 8 percent uranium-235, covering both re-enriching depleted uranium tails and enriching natural uranium as UF₆ [21].

The application has been challenged. In May 2026 the Kentucky Resources Council asked for a hearing, arguing among other things that the Department of Energy has no authority to hand its tails to GLE [23]. The Licensing Board ruled against the council, and the appeal is still pending [24] [25].

No license has been issued, but the review is well advanced. In October 2026 the NRC issued its final environmental impact statement, which recommends granting the license, and GLE expects the staff’s final safety evaluation before the end of 2026 [47]. Silex expects the license itself in the first quarter of 2027 [48], and gives 2030 as the target for commercial operation, with the conditions for a final investment decision still being worked out [20].

The plant already has a buyer. On 16 September 2026 Cameco agreed to buy all of its future output, natural UF₆ and enriched product alike, at a price tied to Cameco’s average realized price under its long-term contracts [26]. In January 2026 the Department of Energy gave GLE $28 million for next-generation enrichment, separate from the three $900 million awards to American Centrifuge Operating, General Matter and Orano Federal Services [27].

Here is the part that surprises people: the plant’s first product would not be reactor fuel. The Department of Energy’s old tails still hold roughly 0.25 to 0.5 percent uranium-235, the tails assay [14]. Silex says the first output would be natural-grade uranium, as UF₆, made by re-enriching those tails [20].

Silex sizes that output like a mine. It compares the plant to one producing up to about 1,900 tonnes of uranium a year for about 30 years [20], and puts planned output at about 10 percent of current US uranium and conversion demand [20]. So the first thing Paducah would sell competes with mined and converted uranium, as secondary supply, not with enrichment.

Silex’s stated enrichment capacity for the plant has changed from one document to the next; Table 3 lists the figures. The NRC’s notice gives no capacity figure [21].

Richer products would need another license. Silex lists higher grades of LEU (low-enriched uranium) and HALEU (high-assay low-enriched uranium) among later products; Table 3 gives the grades [14]. The current application stops at 8 percent [21].

TABLE 3. Paducah: figures as stated by Silex.

Measure	Figure
Enrichment capacity	About 2 million SWU a year initially [14]; “up to 6 million” [18]; “up to 8 million” [28]
DOE tails stockpile	More than 200,000 tonnes [20]
Planned natural-grade output	Up to 2,000 tonnes of uranium a year [20]
Comparison	A mine producing up to about 1,900 tonnes of uranium (5 million pounds of U₃O₈) a year for about 30 years [20]
Later products	LEU to 5%; LEU+ 5–10%; HALEU near 20% [14]
License sought	Up to 8 percent [21]

LIS Technologies and CRISLA

CRISLA, short for Condensation Repression Isotope Selective Laser Activation, was devised by Jeff Eerkens in the 1970s. LIS Technologies bought CRISLA, Inc. in August 2023 [5]. It is a molecular process: steady infrared lasers with a wavelength near 5.3 micrometers, or millionths of a meter, act on UF₆ cooled by rapid expansion [29] [5].

The company reports an early readiness rating. In January 2026 it said its CRISLA-3G process had been judged to meet all the elements of TRL-4 and 60 percent of those for TRL-5, without saying who made the judgment [29]. Its October 2026 release calls the process CRISLA-4G [30].

Its first regulatory steps are at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The NRC reviewed its plan for protecting classified information at its test facility in 2026, under docket 70-7039 [31]. On 15 October 2026 the company said the plan had been approved, to take full effect after an NRC readiness review, and that a facility security clearance was next [30]. The same release cites its 8 October 2026 announcement that it had taken its first shipment of UF₆ [30].

No enrichment result has been published. The company says it can make realistic cost predictions for a commercial plant only after a second-phase pilot [30]. Its S-1 registration statement, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 26 October 2026, says that it has not yet shown that CRISLA can reach the performance, reliability or cost needed for commercial use, and that experiments at its Oak Ridge test facility are expected to begin before the end of 2026 [46].

It has not applied to license a commercial plant. In January 2026 Tennessee announced plans to invest $1.38 billion in a commercial enrichment plant at Oak Ridge [32] [33]. LIS Technologies holds a place on the Department of Energy’s LEU enrichment contract, under which orders may be placed [34], but it was not among the companies named in the January 2026 awards [27].

Its timeline has also moved. Company statements reported in January 2026 pointed to commercial operation before 2030 [33]. The S-1 now plans a pilot plant of about 0.5 million SWU a year, ready around 2030, and a first commercial plant, the LEU-3 Facility, opening around 2033, all subject to financing, licensing and the technology working [46]. That is about three years after the 2030 target Silex gives for Paducah [20]. For feed, a collaboration agreement has NANO Nuclear Energy, a company under common management, working toward conversion plants that would supply LIS Technologies with UF₆, though the S-1 says no definitive agreement has been signed [46].

ASP Isotopes and Quantum Leap Energy

On 15 October 2026 Quantum Leap Energy and Necsa, South Africa’s state nuclear corporation, signed a binding heads of agreement for a joint venture, split about 80 to 20, to build a uranium enrichment test bench and a commercial-scale HALEU plant at Pelindaba. The release gives no capacity or dates and does not say which technology the plant would use [38].

ASP Isotopes’ laser process, Quantum Enrichment, is from the atomic-vapor family. Ytterbium metal is evaporated and ionized by dye lasers, and the company’s annual report calls AVLIS “the forerunner of the QE technology” [7]. Work so far has been on ytterbium. It announced the laser plant’s commissioning on 1 April 2025, aiming for 99.75 percent ytterbium-176 [36].

The laser plant has had a slow start. It shipped its first enriched sample in August 2025. In October 2025 a power surge damaged one of its three lasers and halted production [37]. By August 2026 it was running short campaigns about every two days, and the company expected to ship its first product in the second half of 2026 [35]. The enrichment level reached has not been published.

By the company’s own account, Quantum Enrichment has not yet been applied to uranium. Its annual report says it has no approval to test the process on uranium-235, apart from work under its services contract with Necsa [7]. Its subsidiary Quantum Leap Energy repeated that on 15 October 2026 [38].

A first uranium step has been approved. In August 2026 the company reported an authorization covering source material and nuclear-related equipment, at first for cold commissioning of a uranium enrichment test bench [35]. The October release dates the energy ministry’s approval to July 2026 and places it at Necsa’s Pelindaba site [38].

ASP Isotopes has agreements with TerraPower, announced in May 2025, to provide up to 150 tonnes of HALEU from 2028 through 2037, from a planned facility of about 15 tonnes of uranium a year with first production expected in 2027 [39]. Supply depends on getting every permit needed to start enriching uranium in South Africa, and both the aerodynamic and laser processes are named [39]. If the laser route were chosen, the atomic-vapor physics above means metal in and metal out.

Hexium

Hexium, a US start-up that came out of stealth in April 2025, applies an AVLIS-type process to lithium-6, an isotope wanted for fusion fuel [40]. In June 2025 Oklo announced a jointly funded design and cost study of AVLIS-based HALEU enrichment with Hexium and TerraPower, with Lawrence Livermore evaluating the approach [41].

The announcement says no conversion to UF₆ would be needed [41]. By the atomic-vapor logic above, that means metal in and metal out, not the end of the conversion step. Hexium has reported no work on uranium.

Where Each Effort Stands

TABLE 4. Laser and related enrichment efforts and where each stands.

Effort	Family and feed	Uranium record	License position	Latest dated step
AVLIS, Lawrence Livermore (US)	Atomic vapor; uranium metal	Development program; no output totals in the sources cited	No plant built	Suspended by USEC, 9 June 1999 [6]
SILVA (France)	Atomic vapor; uranium metal	About 200 kg enriched to 2.5 percent [1]	No plant built	Program ended 2003 [1]
GLE, SILEX (US)	Molecular; UF₆ in and out	Pilot testing; TRL-6 confirmed by an unnamed assessor; no quantity or enrichment level published [18]	Paducah application under review, docket 70-7033, capped at 8 percent [21]; final environmental impact statement issued [47]; no license issued	Final environmental impact statement announced, 23 October 2026 [47]
LIS Technologies, CRISLA (US)	Molecular; UF₆ in and out	None published	Classified-information plan approved for Oak Ridge test facility [30]; no commercial application	First UF₆ shipment announced 8 October 2026 [30]
ASP Isotopes and QLE, Quantum Enrichment (South Africa)	Atomic vapor; metal (ytterbium today)	None; company states no uranium enriched [7]	Ministry approval for cold commissioning of a test bench (company-reported) [38]	Necsa joint-venture agreement, 15 October 2026 [38]
Hexium (US)	Atomic vapor; metal	None reported	No application found	HALEU design study announced 25 June 2025 [41]

“None published” and “none reported” mean that no result was found in the company releases and filings cited. License positions are as stated in the sources cited.

What the Coverage Tends to Leave Out

The energy saving is still a projection. Chapter 6 of the primer cites laser approaches projecting toward 10 kilowatt-hours per SWU or less at commercial scale [49]. None of the current developers has published a measured figure for uranium, and the readiness ratings so far carry no performance numbers [18] [29]. LIS Technologies describes its process only as “more energy-efficient” [30].

Metal routes add steps at both ends. The atomic-vapor routes, AVLIS, SILVA, Quantum Enrichment and Hexium’s process, take in metal and put out metal. Fitting them into today’s UF₆-based chain needs metal production before the plant and fluorination, or a separate fuel-making step, after it. A centrifuge plant needs neither. The molecular routes, SILEX and CRISLA, stay in UF₆.

HALEU brings tighter rules. The World Nuclear Association defines HALEU as uranium enriched to more than 5 and less than 20 percent [42].

HALEU enriched to 10 percent or more is Category II material once a site holds 10 kilograms or more of uranium-235 in it [45]. Paducah’s application stops at 8 percent [21]: inside the HALEU range, but below the level at which Category II applies.

HALEU also needs plants of its own on either side. The World Nuclear Association notes that the safety data for keeping HALEU from reaching criticality are lacking, and calls economical transport in commercial quantities unresolved [42]. The NRC did certify the DN30-X package for UF₆ enriched up to 20 percent in 2023 [44]. Turning HALEU UF₆ into oxide, metal or TRISO fuel needs reconversion capacity of its own, which the Association lists among the plants a HALEU fuel cycle will need [42].

The tails have a legal question of their own. The Kentucky Resources Council’s first contention challenges the Department of Energy’s authority to transfer depleted uranium to GLE [23]. The Licensing Board held that question outside the NRC proceeding, and the appeal is pending [24] [25].

What This Means

So, how close is laser enrichment? No commercial-scale laser uranium plant is operating. The only laser enrichment of uranium on the public record with a quantity and a level is France’s SILVA, about 200 kilograms at 2.5 percent, and that ended in 2003 [1]. That is different from saying the technology is not close enough to fund or license. GLE is furthest along: it has a pilot, an unnamed TRL-6 readiness rating with no published numbers, a license application whose final environmental impact statement recommends granting the license, a Cameco offtake for all future Paducah output, and a company expectation of a license around the first quarter of 2027 — but no license and no plant [18] [26] [47] [48]. LIS Technologies has filed an S-1 and expects Oak Ridge experiments before the end of 2026 [46]. Capital is treating the path as fundable. What has not been shown is commercial-scale operation; the licensing and financing milestones ahead are measured in months to a few years, not decades.

The energy saving that made lasers attractive in the first place has not been measured for uranium by any current developer. And the atomic-vapor routes would need metal-handling steps that today’s fuel chain does not have. Half a century on, the promise is narrower than it was, and more concrete.

A few dated events will tell whether that changes: publication of the quantity and enrichment level from GLE’s pilot; the NRC’s final safety evaluation and licensing decision on Paducah, which GLE and Silex expect by the first quarter of 2027 [47] [48]; the first uranium test at Pelindaba; and any measured separation result from LIS Technologies at Oak Ridge. Chapter 6 of the primer gives the background on enrichment and its methods [49].

Spot an error? Suggest a correction

Notes

1. World Nuclear Association, “Uranium Enrichment,” Information Library, accessed 20 October 2026; also gives the 2025 world capacity table from the Nuclear Fuel Report 2025. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/uranium-enrichment

2. GlobalSecurity.org, “Laser Isotope Separation,” undated reference page. https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/u-laser.htm

3. Laser Focus World, “SILEX laser uranium enrichment technology may create new nuclear-proliferation risks,” 29 June 2016; reports R. Snyder, “A Proliferation Assessment of Third Generation Laser Uranium Enrichment Technology,” Science & Global Security, published online 23 June 2016. https://www.laserfocusworld.com/lasers-sources/article/16558982/silex-laser-uranium-enrichment-technology-may-create-new-nuclearproliferation-risks

4. Silex Systems, “SILEX Uranium Enrichment Technology,” accessed 19 October 2026. https://silex.com.au/silex-technology/silex-uranium-enrichment-technology

5. R&D World, “A new method of uranium enrichment could finally solve the 50-year scaling problem,” 2026; cited for the history of CRISLA and its acquisition by LIS Technologies. https://www.rdworldonline.com/a-new-method-of-uranium-enrichment-could-finally-solve-the-50-year-scaling-problem/

6. Laser Focus World, “US Enrichment Corp. shuts down AVLIS,” August 1999. https://laserfocusworld.com/lasers-sources/article/16548729/us-enrichment-corp-shuts-down-avlis

7. ASP Isotopes Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025, US Securities and Exchange Commission, filed April 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1921865/000119312526151294/aspi-20251231.htm

8. World Nuclear News, “New South African enrichment process,” 4 September 2008. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/new-south-african-enrichment-process

9. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Lashkar Ab’ad,” facility profile compiling IAEA reports, accessed 19 October 2026. https://www.nti.org/education-center/facilities/lashkar-abad/

10. R. Scott Kemp, “SILEX and proliferation,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 30 July 2012. https://thebulletin.org/2012/07/silex-and-proliferation/

11. Global Laser Enrichment, “History,” accessed 19 October 2026. https://www.gle-us.com/history/

12. William J. Clinton, “Message to the Congress Transmitting the Australia-United States Peaceful Nuclear Technology Transfer Agreement,” 3 November 1999, The American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/message-the-congress-transmitting-the-australia-united-states-peaceful-nuclear-technology

13. World Nuclear News, “US government approves GLE restructure,” 19 January 2021. https://world-nuclear-news.org/articles/us-government-approves-gle-restructure

14. Silex Systems, Investor Presentation, ASX release, 5 June 2025; cited for the Cameco option, the tails assay, the initial capacity and the product list. https://clients3.weblink.com.au/pdf/SLX/02954097.pdf

15. World Nuclear News, “Laser enrichment one step closer as licence issued,” 26 September 2012. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Laser-enrichment-one-step-closer-as-licence-issued

16. World Nuclear News, “Initial success from SILEX test loop,” 12 April 2010. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Initial-success-from-SILEX-test-loop

17. Nuclear Engineering International, “GLE begins TRL-6 laser enrichment testing,” 14 May 2025. https://www.neimagazine.com/news/gle-begins-trl-6-laser-enrichment-testing/

18. Silex Systems, “GLE Achieves TRL-6 for the SILEX Laser Uranium Enrichment Technology,” ASX release reproduced by OTC Markets, 23 October 2025. https://www.otcmarkets.com/news-otcapi/news/document/content/id?id=85750

19. US Department of Energy, “Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs),” Energy.gov, accessed 20 October 2026. https://www.energy.gov/node/4859862

20. Silex Systems, “Operational Update – 27 August 2026,” ASX release via Listcorp, 27 August 2026; also reports the silicon-28 plant in Sydney. https://www.listcorp.com/asx/slx/silex-systems-limited/news/operational-update-27-august-2026-3396299.html

21. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Global Laser Enrichment, LLC; Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility,” notice of hearing opportunity (Commission order CLI-26-3), Federal Register 91 FR 11092, 6 March 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-03-06/html/2026-04474.htm

22. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, notice of availability of the draft environmental impact statement for the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility, FR Doc. 2026-05955, 27 March 2026. https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-05955.pdf

23. Kentucky Resources Council, Request for Hearing and Petition to Intervene, Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility, NRC ADAMS ML26125A449, 5 May 2026. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2612/ML26125A449.pdf

24. WKMS, “Ky. environmental group appealing petition to halt Global Laser Enrichment licensing process,” 6 August 2026; reports the Licensing Board ruling of July 2026 (LBP-26-7). https://www.wkms.org/business-economy/2026-08-06/ky-environmental-group-appealing-petition-to-halt-global-laser-enrichment-licensing-process

25. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Order CLI-26-12 of 26 August 2026, Federal Register Doc. 2026-17590, 28 August 2026. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-08-28/html/2026-17590.htm

26. World Nuclear News, “Cameco in offtake agreement for US laser enrichment plant,” 16 September 2026; also reports GLE’s expected license date. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/cameco-in-offtake-agreement-for-us-laser-enrichment-plant

27. US Department of Energy, “U.S. Department of Energy Awards $2.7 Billion to Restore American Uranium Enrichment,” 5 January 2026; also reports the separate award to Global Laser Enrichment. https://www.energy.gov/articles/us-department-energy-awards-27-billion-restore-american-uranium-enrichment

28. Silex Systems, “Global Laser Enrichment,” accessed 19 October 2026. https://www.silex.com.au/silex-technology/global-laser-enrichment/

29. LIS Technologies Inc., release on its January 2026 funding round, Newsfile, 13 January 2026; cited for the CRISLA wavelength and readiness evaluation. https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/280187

30. LIS Technologies Inc., “LIS Technologies Granted NRC Approval of Standard Practice Procedures Plan,” GlobeNewswire via Yahoo Finance, 15 October 2026; also cites the company’s announcement of its first UF₆ shipment. https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/lis-technologies-granted-u-nuclear-123000795.html

31. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, letter to LIS Technologies Inc. requesting additional information on its Standard Practice Procedures Plan, Docket 70-7039, ADAMS ML26155A067, 17 June 2026. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2615/ML26155A067.pdf

32. Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, “LIS Technologies to Invest More Than $1 Billion in Laser Uranium Enrichment Facility,” 16 January 2026. https://www.tn.gov/ecd/news/2026/1/16/lis-technologies-to-invest-more-than–1-billion-in-laser-uranium-enrichment-facility.html

33. American Nuclear Society, Nuclear Newswire, “LIS Technologies to invest $1.38B in Oak Ridge,” 21 January 2026. https://www.ans.org/news/2026-01-21/article-7688/lis-technologies-to-invest-138b-in-oak-ridge/

34. American Nuclear Society, Nuclear Newswire, “DOE awards $2.7B for HALEU and LEU enrichment,” 6 January 2026; cited for the contract-vehicle awardees, including LIS Technologies. https://www.ans.org/news/article-7652/doe-awards-27b-for-haleu-and-leu-enrichment/

35. ASP Isotopes Inc., “ASP Isotopes Issues Letter to Shareholders,” 4 August 2026. https://ir.aspisotopes.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/114/aspisotopes-issues-letter-to-shareholders

36. ASP Isotopes Inc., release on commissioning of its first Quantum Enrichment laser system, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, US Securities and Exchange Commission, 1 April 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1921865/000147793225002297/aspi_ex991.htm

37. ASP Isotopes Inc., “ASP Isotopes Inc. Provides Business Update,” 13 April 2026; cited for the ytterbium-176 sample shipment and laser outage. https://ir.aspisotopes.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/104/asp-isotopes-inc-provides-business-update

38. Quantum Leap Energy, “Quantum Leap Energy and Necsa Sign Binding Heads of Agreement to Establish Joint Venture for HALEU Production in South Africa,” GlobeNewswire, 15 October 2026. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/10/15/3381549/0/en/quantum-leap-energy-and-necsa-sign-binding-heads-of-agreement-to-establish-joint-venture-for-haleu-production-in-south-africa.html

39. ASP Isotopes Inc., release on definitive agreements with TerraPower, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, US Securities and Exchange Commission, event date 19 May 2025, filed 20 May 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1921865/000147793225003995/aspi_ex991.htm

40. TechCrunch, “Fusion power has a fuel problem; Hexium has a laser-powered solution,” 15 April 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/15/fusion-power-has-a-fuel-problem-hexium-has-a-laser-powered-solution/

41. Oklo Inc., “Oklo Enters Strategic Collaborations with Hexium and TerraPower to Launch New Pathway for Domestic HALEU Enrichment,” press release via North American Clean Energy, 25 June 2025. https://www.nacleanenergy.com/oklo-enters-strategic-collaborations-with-hexium-and-terrapower-to-launch-new-pathway-for-domestic-haleu-enrichment

42. World Nuclear Association, “High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU),” Information Library, accessed 20 October 2026. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichment-and-fabrication/high-assay-low-enriched-uranium-(haleu).aspx

43. Arms Control Today, “NRC Nixes Bid for Proliferation Reviews,” June 2013; reports the American Physical Society petition of November 2010. https://armscontrol.org/act/2013_06/NRC-Nixes-Bid-for-Proliferation-Reviews

44. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Safety Evaluation Report for the Model DN30-X package, Docket 71-9388 (ML23083B980), 2023. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2308/ML23083B980.pdf

45. US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “Security and safeguards” (new fuels), reviewed 14 September 2026; Category II threshold for uranium enriched to 10 percent or more but less than 20. https://www.nrc.gov/materials/new-fuels/security-safeguards.html

46. LIS Technologies Inc., Form S-1 registration statement (preliminary prospectus), US Securities and Exchange Commission, filed 26 October 2026; cited for the development phases, pilot and LEU-3 Facility timeline and capacities, the October 2026 UF₆ delivery and planned experiments, and the NANO Nuclear Joint Collaboration Agreement. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1973276/000149315226048438/0001493152-26-048438-index.htm

47. Global Laser Enrichment, “NRC Issues Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility,” 23 October 2026; also gives the expected timing of the final safety evaluation. https://www.gle-us.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/NRC-Issues-GLE-FEIS.pdf

48. Silex Systems, “US NRC Issues Final Environmental Impact Statement for Planned Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility,” ASX release, 26 October 2026; cited for the expected license date. https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2924-03152843-2A1706011

49. J. Hill, The Nuclear Fuel Cycle: A Complete Primer, Chapter 6.

50. The Nuclear Fuel Cycle (thenuclearfuelcycle.com), “Conversion and Deconversion,” posted 25 October 2026. https://thenuclearfuelcycle.com/2026/10/25/conversion-and-deconversion/