Many advanced reactors will need specialist fuel, but market is dominated by Russia
TerraPower, the nuclear innovation company founded by Bill Gates, has entered into a non-binding agreement with ASP Isotopes related to the construction of a uranium enrichment facility capable of producing high assay low-enriched uranium (Haleu) and the future supply of Haleu for TerraPower’s reactors.
Washington-based ASP Isotopes, which is developing technology and processes for the production of isotopes for use in multiple industries, said the “term sheet” with TerraPower outlines early-stage proposals for TerraPower to provide funding for the construction of a uranium enrichment facility and buy Haleu when the facility is in operation.
A term sheet is a document that outlines the key terms and conditions of a proposed investment or transaction.
The two companies hope to enter into a long-term supply agreement for TerraPower to buy all the Haleu produced at the facility over a 10-year period after the expected completion of the facility.
The term sheet contains non-binding and binding provisions, including a period of exclusivity during which ASP Isotopes will not negotiate with third parties for the supply of Haleu or work on another ASP technology-based uranium enrichment facility, a statement said.
It said ASP Isotopes is also in discussions with financial institutions to provide additional capital for the Haleu facility.
Haleu is uranium enriched between 5% and 20%, which increases the amount of fissile material to make the fuel more efficient relative to lower-enriched forms of uranium.
ASP Isotopes’ subsidiary Quantum Leap Energy aims to use proprietary techniques it has developed to enrich U-235 and produce Haleu.
Many advanced reactors – likely to be deployed from the 2030s onwards – will use Haleu to achieve smaller designs, longer operating cycles, and increased efficiencies over current technologies.
Haleu Needed For First Natrium Reactor In Wyoming
One of those advanced reactors is TerraPower’s Natrium. TerraPower, a startup founded by Gates in 2008, broke ground in June 2024 for construction of its first commercial Natrium nuclear plant at Kemmerer in Wyoming, where a coal plant is shutting down.
TerraPower’s chief executive Cristopher Levesque has said that the company is aiming to start nuclear-related works in 2026 subject to receiving a permit from the US regulator. The plant is expected to be completed by 2029-2030.
However, Haleu is not yet widely available commercially. Only Russia and China have the infrastructure to produce Haleu at scale, although a number of countries have announced plans to manufacture it. In the US, Centrus Energy, began producing Haleu from a demonstration-scale cascade in October 2023 and delivered its first batch to the Department of Energy in November 2023.
ASP Isotopes believes that its enrichment technologies can be deployed in a new Haleu facility for considerably lower capital costs, and in much less time, compared to the construction of an enrichment facility using a traditional centrifuge process of Haleu production.
The company has already constructed or is in the process of constructing three isotope enrichment facilities in South Africa. The first facility is expected to enrich carbon-14 for use in healthcare and agrochemicals. The second will enrich silicon-28, which will enable faster, more efficient semiconductors for use in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. The third facility is expected to enrich ytterbium-176, a critically important raw material used in the production of oncology therapies.
“Over the last several decades, the scientists at ASP Isotopes have developed some of the world’s most advanced isotope enrichment technologies,” said Paul Mann, chairman and chief executive officer of ASP Isotopes. “This term sheet is further validation of our belief that ASP Isotopes can offer scalable and capital efficient technology solutions to the supply challenges which exist in global isotope markets.”
