HALEU Shortage Threatens Advanced Reactor Timelines as DOE Pursues 290 MT

A shortage of high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, is now a direct threat to schedules for NuScale, Oklo, TerraPower, and X-energy as the U.S. Department of Energy pursues a 290 metric tonne (MT) purchase to anchor domestic demand. Centrus Energy’s first delivery of 100 kilograms to DOE in late 2023 is a milestone, but it is tiny compared with DOE and industry projections for advanced reactor fuel needs.

The supply picture remains constrained. Nyserda’s reporting cites Russia’s Tenex as the world’s only commercial HALEU producer at the time of the source excerpts, and notes that Russia temporarily restricted enriched uranium exports to the U.S. after U.S. sanctions in May 2024. Centrus has used funds from the $700 million released by the Inflation Reduction Act to help establish domestic HALEU supply, and DOE co-funded a demonstration enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio that U.S. regulators cleared to begin operations in June 2023. Orano and the State of Tennessee announced Oak Ridge, TN as the preferred site for a new enrichment facility intended to produce LEU and HALEU.

Demand projections sharpen the urgency. An IAEA article by Lucy Ashton reports DOE projections that more than 40,000 kilograms of HALEU will be needed by 2030 and warns that “Many advanced reactor designs, including small modular reactors (SMRs), will require high assay low enriched uranium (HALEU) fuel, which ranges from 5 to 20 per cent of uranium-235.” Ashton adds that “the US nuclear industry is warning that the deployment of some SMR designs may be delayed by years due to the lack of HALEU.” The Euratom Supply Agency projects European research reactors will need 700 kilograms to one ton per year by 2035, while the Breakthrough Institute finds current U.S. enrichment capacity would cover only 10 to 25 percent of projected annual needs in 2050 if new capacity is not built.

Definitions and fabrication limits complicate planning. Los Alamos and IAEA material use a 5–20 percent 235U band for HALEU, while the National Academies report defines HALEU as enrichment greater than or equal to 10 percent but less than 20 percent and classifies 5–under-10 percent as LEU+. The National Academies’ Section 4.2.3 also notes that U.S. domestic fuel fabrication today is sized for UO2 fuels under 5 percent enrichment and is not equipped to produce HALEU or non‑UO2 fuel forms such as TRISO pebbles used in helium-cooled high-temperature gas reactors or the sodium-cooled fast reactor reference designs evaluated in other studies.

Security analysis in Los Alamos–led work LA-UR-23-24881 examined HALEU for enrichment, downblending, fuel fabrication, transport, reactor operation, and irradiated fuel storage. The study’s headline conclusion reads: “There is no significant change in the nuclear security risk profile for HALEU relative to LEU when considering sabotage risks and the likelihood of theft; consequences of theft were not evaluated in this study.” The report also flagged transport-related concerns, noting a “possible increased opportunity for theft or sabotage during transport, stemming from the smaller size of shipping” in an excerpt that is partially truncated in public text.

Policy and market obstacles remain stark. The National Academies and NEI identify a “chicken-and-egg” problem between reactor designers and fuel producers, and Breakthrough calls for urgent, aggressive steps to foster a commercial market for enrichment and fuel fabrication while minimizing geopolitical risk. Public excerpts also leave unanswered specifics: one source states “Only one Western company is now licensed to produce it at scale” without naming the firm, and Nyserda’s discussion of DOE downblending of HEU notes the surplus “may only produce 15 [...]” with the figure truncated. Those gaps matter for whether DOE’s 290 MT target and IAEA/DOE projections such as >40,000 kg by 2030 can be met on schedule.