In Piketon, Ohio, a small cascade of 16 centrifuges inside the Department of Energy’s former Cold War enrichment complex is spinning up with an outsized mission: producing the first commercially available high-assay low-enriched uranium, or HALEU, ever made on American soil without Russian involvement. The machines are operated by Centrus Energy, and their output, targeted at 900 kilograms per year, is a fraction of what the nation’s 93 commercial reactors will eventually need. But the Piketon cascade represents the leading edge of a multibillion-dollar federal campaign to rebuild uranium enrichment capacity that the United States largely surrendered over the past two decades.
That campaign accelerated sharply after a law banning imports of Russian low-enriched uranium took effect on August 11, 2024. Before the ban, Russia supplied roughly 24 percent of the enrichment services used by American nuclear utilities, according to the Energy Information Administration. Replacing that share is proving far more complex than signing contracts, and as of spring 2026, the transition is exposing supply gaps, timeline uncertainties, and cost questions that stretch across the nuclear fuel chain.
Billions committed, facilities still years away
Congress paired the import ban with $2.72 billion in appropriations to expand domestic enrichment and conversion capacity. The Department of Energy moved quickly to deploy the money, awarding $2.7 billion in enrichment task orders split among three companies: American Centrifuge Operating, a Centrus subsidiary; General Matter; and Orano Federal Services. A separate $28 million went to Global Laser Enrichment to develop an alternative enrichment technology that uses lasers rather than centrifuges.
The dollar figures are large, but the physical infrastructure they are meant to build does not yet exist at commercial scale. Centrifuge cascades must be manufactured, installed, tested, and licensed before they can produce reactor-grade fuel. That process historically takes years, and the nuclear industry has a long track record of cost overruns and schedule slips on complex fuel-cycle projects. None of the three primary enrichment contractors has publicly committed to a date when their new capacity will be fully operational.
On the mining side, the picture is somewhat brighter. Domestic uranium concentrate production reached 437,238 pounds of U3O8 in the second quarter of 2025, a 41 percent jump from 310,533 pounds in the first quarter, according to the EIA’s quarterly uranium production report. Mines in Wyoming, Texas, and Arizona have restarted or expanded operations in response to higher uranium prices and the new policy environment. But raw yellowcake from a mine is only the first step. It must be converted to uranium hexafluoride gas, then enriched to the precise isotopic concentration each reactor requires. The conversion and enrichment stages are where Russian dominance was most entrenched, and where the domestic gap remains widest.
Waivers reveal the supply crunch
Even as Washington moved to sever the Russian fuel link, it acknowledged that utilities could not absorb an overnight cutoff. Centrus Energy disclosed in an SEC filing that the Department of Energy issued a waiver on July 18, 2024, allowing the company to continue importing LEU under its existing contract with TENEX, Russia’s state uranium trader, for committed deliveries in 2024 and 2025.
That waiver window has now closed, and the question hanging over the industry is what comes next. If domestic enrichment capacity is not yet producing at volume, utilities face two options: source enriched uranium from allied suppliers such as Urenco, which operates a centrifuge plant in Eunice, New Mexico, and facilities in Europe, or Orano’s operations in France, or accept potential delays and higher prices. Neither the DOE nor major fuel buyers have publicly detailed contingency arrangements for a scenario in which new American capacity falls behind schedule.
The stakes are not abstract. Nuclear plants typically plan fuel purchases three to five years in advance. A reactor operator that cannot secure enriched uranium on schedule may be forced to reduce output or, in an extreme case, shut down for a refueling cycle. With nuclear power supplying roughly 19 percent of U.S. electricity, according to the EIA, disruptions at even a handful of plants could tighten regional power markets.
The HALEU bottleneck
Standard low-enriched uranium, enriched to less than 5 percent uranium-235, fuels the existing fleet of pressurized-water and boiling-water reactors. But a new generation of advanced reactor designs requires HALEU, enriched to between 5 and 20 percent. TerraPower’s Natrium reactor, under construction in Kemmerer, Wyoming, and X-energy’s Xe-100, planned for deployment at Dow Chemical’s Seadrift, Texas, facility, both depend on HALEU fuel that currently has no large-scale domestic source.
The Piketon cascade operated by Centrus is the only NRC-licensed HALEU production facility in the country. Its initial capacity of 900 kilograms per year is a demonstration quantity, not a commercial supply. The Department of Energy conducted a 2024 solicitation for expanded HALEU enrichment services and selected companies to prepare proposals, with task order decisions linked to early 2026. Whether those awards translate into operating plants before advanced reactors need fuel remains one of the most consequential open questions in American energy policy.
Without a reliable HALEU supply, developers of next-generation reactors face a chicken-and-egg problem: they cannot finalize fuel contracts without enrichment capacity, and enrichers are reluctant to build expensive cascades without firm orders. The $2.7 billion in federal funding is designed to break that deadlock, but the money alone does not eliminate the engineering and regulatory timelines involved.
What consumers and regulators are watching
Uranium fuel typically accounts for a small fraction of a nuclear plant’s total operating cost, roughly 5 to 10 percent, compared with the capital and maintenance expenses that dominate utility budgets. But a sudden shift in enrichment sourcing and pricing is not trivial. If utilities pay a premium to secure non-Russian enrichment on short notice, those costs can flow through to ratepayers in states where fuel expenses are passed along in regulated rate structures.
Fuel contract terms are largely confidential, and no public data yet quantifies the price impact of the Russian ban on American electricity bills. State public utility commissions in nuclear-heavy states such as Illinois, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina will likely scrutinize fuel cost filings more closely in the coming rate cycles. For now, the financial consequences of the supply transition remain difficult to pin down with precision.
The broader picture is clearer. The United States has committed real money and enacted binding law to rebuild a uranium enrichment capability it allowed to atrophy after the Cold War. Domestic mining is rising. Contracts are signed. A small HALEU cascade is running. But the distance between those early steps and a fully self-sufficient nuclear fuel chain is measured in years and billions of additional dollars, and the industry is navigating that gap with fewer certainties than policymakers or utility planners would prefer.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
