Overview
- The Department of Energy has committed major funding to Centrus’s multibillion-dollar American Centrifuge Plant expansion in Piketon, Ohio to scale domestic production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU).
- Centrus has signed an agreement to supply Oklo with HALEU intended to fuel up to five Oklo microreactors, with deliveries planned to begin in 2029.
- U.S. policy is tightening fuel security after Congress passed the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act in 2024, a law that restricts certain Russian-sourced LEU and whose waivers expire on Jan. 1, 2028.
- Energy analysts point to rising electricity demand from large AI data centers as a structural driver for more nuclear capacity, and they highlight miners, utilities and ETFs as investment routes into the trend.
- Industry experts warn that HALEU and new reactor rollouts face multi-year lead times, complex regulatory steps and supply-chain bottlenecks, so commercial delivery schedules and investor returns remain uncertain.