At a special briefing for policymakers on Capitol Hill today, Centrus said that the $3.4 billion that Congress has made available for domestic nuclear fuel production should be focused on deploying American uranium enrichment technology that is manufactured in the United States, by American workers, as opposed to foreign-origin centrifuge technologies that are manufactured overseas.
"The need to transition away from Russian nuclear fuel, coupled with a historic investment in U.S. nuclear fuel production approved by Congress, has created a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore America's domestic supply chain for enriched uranium," said Amir Vexler, President and CEO of Centrus. "We should not be content to trade dependence on Russia for dependence on China, or Europe, or anywhere else. The time has come to invest in American enrichment technology, built by American workers, with an American supply chain."
Vexler was joined at the briefing by leaders of approximately 14 large and small businesses with work locations in 13 states, representing Centrus' nationwide supply chain. These American-owned companies and many others would provide critical components and other support to Centrus if the federal government decides to support deployment of Centrus' American Centrifuge technology, which is manufactured in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and operated in Piketon, Ohio.
Under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy, Centrus has deployed a cascade of sixteen centrifuges at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, and is pioneering production of an advanced reactor fuel called High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU). Centrus' goal is to expand the capacity of the plant with thousands of additional centrifuges to accommodate large-scale production of Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) for existing reactors and HALEU for next generation reactors. This will require a public private partnership including robust federal investment alongside private capital and purchase agreements from customers.
Centrus is competing for federal funding under a series of Requests for Proposals (RFPs) issued by the U.S. Department of Energy. These RFPs are backed by more than $3.4 billion in Congressional appropriations that were approved as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and the bipartisan government funding bill in March 2024.
