Inside the uranium plant in the United States, plans to extend nuclear energy

Eunice, New Mexico-Paul at the same time was a quarter manager in a whole new uranium enrichment installation at the bottom of the US southwest when the disaster hit Japan in 2011.

A massive tsunami and an earthquake caused a serious accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Thousands of kilometers from there to Eunice, in New Mexico, at thekulsint on the television to make sure that his team could attend what was going on in the Pacific Ocean.

Duringkulsint knew that the disaster in Japan was a moment in the nuclear industry basin. The factory where he headed a quarter of work of operations had just opened in 2010, after the European uranium enriched Urenco spent years building the installation in anticipation of increasing demand.

During the decade which followed, public support for nuclear energy decreased and a dozen reactors closed the United States while industry had trouble competing with a stream of inexpensive natural gas and renewable energy. The demand for low -enrichment uranium which feeds nuclear power plants has decreased.

“The price of what we sold essentially crossed the ground,” said CNBC at CNBC, who is now the Urenco USA nuclear director. Urenco long-term contracts with public services have isolated ease during slowdown, he said, but the drop in prices has suspended new expansion plans.

Based outside London, Urenco belongs to British and Dutch governments and two German public services. Its New Mexico factory is the only commercial enrichment installation that remains in the United States, the last commercial installation belonging to the United States in Paducah, Kentucky, closed in 2013 and its owner, the United States Enrichment Corporation, went bankrupt during the slowdown after Fukushima.

Fourteen years later, the situation has reversed again. Urenco USA is underway to extend its enrichment capacity. The nuclear industry is growing because demand for electricity in the United States should resolve artificial intelligence and pressure to extend national manufacturing. Doubts persist that American power supplies will increase fairly quickly to meet the needs. The increase in the enrichment of uranium will be a key element in the process, despite the history of past disappointments.

In addition, American -enriched uranium supplies are at risk. The United States has always imported 20% of its uranium enriched with Russia in 2024, a legacy of the now broken hope of friendship between the two countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

The United States completely prohibits Russian import uranium by 2028 in REPSONSE at the large-scale invasion of Moscow Ukraine, leaving a deficit of supply for tastes just at the time when Washington, public services and the technological sector have been developing the most ambitious plans for decades to build new reactors.

Nuclear power plants such as Michigan palisades, Crane Clean Energy Center in Pennsylvania and Duane Arnold in Iowa plan to restart operations this decade after closing years ago. The technological sector invests hundreds of millions of dollars to put online advanced reactors in the 2030s to help feed their computer warehouses that form and execute AI applications.

“It’s a pivotal moment, the next five to 10 years for the nuclear industry,” said duringkulsint. “We will have to deliver in time, on time and continue to maintain this momentum, which is an important challenge.”

In a deeply divided Washington, support for nuclear energy is one of the few problems that can still bring together bipartite support. President Donald Trump wants to quadruple nuclear energy by 2050, a significant increase compared to the previous objective of President Joe Biden to triple him on this date.

The United States has only built a new nuclear power plant from zero in the past 30 years, raising doubts about whether such ambitious plans can be made. But any big or small effort to extend nuclear energy in the United States will cross the installations of Urenco to the New Mexico.

The factory currently has the capacity to provide around a third of American demand with $ 5 billion invested in the installation to date. Urenco extends its capacity to new-mexic from 15% to 2027 while the Uliles replace Russian fuel. He installed two new centrifuge waterfalls for enrichment this year. But Urenco’s expansion alone will not fill the Russian supply gap, said at the same time.

“Our competitors will have to develop to ensure that as a whole, the industry is still provided,” he said. “We build quickly as we can make sure that industry is not in the short term.”

While Russian fuel is prohibited in the United States, the Trump administration is pressure for 10 new reactors to start building this decade. Alphabet invest in about 2 gigawatts again nuclear, Amazon is committed to more than 5 gigawatts, and Meta wants to bring up to 4 gigawatts online.

The industry is concerned about the supply gap, said at the same time, but fulfilling it “is not an insurmountable task”.

Urenco USA is a candidate to receive a contract from the Ministry of Energy to produce more uranium with low enrichment, part of American efforts to rule on a domestic nuclear supply chain. The contract would allow the installation of the New Mexico to develop more with the construction of a fourth production building.

Urenco competitors are also looking for the support of the energy department to strengthen the enrichment capacity of the United States. The French Orano plans to build an installation in Oak Ridge, Tennesse, with operations potentially starting in the 2030s.

Stock market Centers Has a pikeston installation, Ohio, where it plans to produce low -enriched uranium, but it has not yet started its commercial operations. Centrus is the Successor Company of the United States Enrichment Corporation which went bankrupt in 2013.

Centrus shares have gained more than 400% this year while investors are betting on an increasing demand for uranium enriched due to American plans to extend nuclear energy.

But enrichment is only a step of a long supply chain which will be stretched by growing demand. Uranium delivered to the United States is often operated in Canada and it is then converted into an intermediate condition called uranium hexafluoride which is the raw material for enrichment.

The raw material is turned in the centrifugal of Urenco to increase the presence of the uranium-235 isotope to 5%, the level necessary for most nuclear power plants. Enriched uranium is then shipped for fuel manufacturers who manufacture the pastilles that enter the reactors in power plants.

US nuclear power plants faced a cumulative supply difference of 184 million pounds of uranium until 2034, according to the Energy Information Administration. The biggest bottleneck for Urenco is the conversion of uranium for raw materials for enrichment, said duringkulsint. There are only three installations in the Western world located in Canada, France and Illinois which convert uranium into raw materials.

“Each part of the supply chain will have to develop, it is not only enrichment,” said at thekulsint. “We need more, but conversion right now is the bottleneck.”

The nuclear supply chain may not be the biggest challenge, said the executive. The aging American electrical network could prove to be the real constraint on the construction of new nuclear power due to the duration of the upgrade to finish upgrades, he said. Although it can slow down Urenco, it will not stop expansion, he said.

“We came here when the market demanded it,” said Urenco’s investment in the United States, “said, we were here when the market did not require it. And we are now expanding to make sure that we can always support as much as the market needs us.”