PIKETON, Ohio — Centrus Energy Corp. has signed a multiyear contract to supply nuclear fuel for Radiant’s transportable microreactors, adding a new customer for the domestically produced fuel the company is ramping up at its Pike County plant.
Centrus and Radiant, a California-based microreactor developer, announced the deal Wednesday. Under the agreement, Centrus will begin delivering high-assay, low-enriched uranium, known as HALEU, to fuel Radiant’s Kaleidos microreactors before the end of the decade, according to the companies.
The contract is the second major HALEU supply agreement Centrus has struck this year with a microreactor developer, following an August deal with X-energy, and adds to Centrus’ backlog of customers for fuel tied to its domestic enrichment build-out. The agreement includes prepayments from Radiant to Centrus that will help fund that expansion, which includes projects at the company’s Piketon plant, according to the release.
Because Centrus’ enrichment technology is U.S.-origin and relies on a domestic manufacturing supply chain, the fuel it will supply to Radiant is classified as “unobligated,” meaning it can be used for national security applications, the company said. Centrus described its AC100 centrifuge design as the only deployment-ready U.S.-origin technology currently available for that kind of enrichment.
Radiant is developing transportable, plug-in-ready microreactors intended to power remote locations, data centers, defense sites and other commercial and industrial uses. The company has completed an initial test of its Kaleidos reactor and is working toward commercial and national security deployments, according to the release.
“The contract with Radiant marks another important step in building the domestic fuel supply chain needed to support the next generation of nuclear energy,” Centrus President and CEO Amir Vexler said in a statement. “By expanding our work to include innovative microreactor developers like Radiant, we are strengthening the U.S.-based fuel supply network. This will help ensure that emerging nuclear technologies have access to the reliable fuel they need to reach commercialization and meet growing demand for clean, secure, and dependable energy.”
“You can’t deploy nuclear reactors without fuel, so we have approached our fuel supply the same way we have approached the reactor: build it in parallel, and don’t depend on any single path,” Radiant Chief Nuclear Officer Rita Baranwal said in a statement. “This agreement gives Kaleidos a continued source of HALEU for commercial and national security applications and removes one of the biggest constraints facing advanced nuclear deployment.”
The Radiant contract follows a string of announcements this year as Centrus has expanded hiring and construction at its Piketon site to grow domestic HALEU production capacity.
The information contained in this story was obtained from Centrus Energy Corp.
