Global Laser Enrichment (GLE), jointly owned by Australia’s Silex Systems (51%) and Canada’s Cameco (49%), has acquired a 665-acre land parcel for its planned Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF) in Kentucky. The land, previously owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and managed by the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), was acquired through an agreement involving the Commonwealth, KDFWR, and the Paducah-McCracken County Industrial Development Authority.
The site is strategically located adjacent to the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) former first generation Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). It provides access to the cylinder yard where depleted UF6 tails inventories are stored, minimising transportation between the PGDP and the proposed PLEF site.
GLE has been assessing the site for several months and performing geotechnical analysis to support its pending licence application and environmental report submissions to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). GLE sims to submit the environmental report in December 2024 and licence application in the summer of 2025.
GLE is the exclusive licensee of the Silex technology for uranium enrichment. Silex Systems, based at the Australia Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation (ANSTO) in Lucas Heights, Sydney, is developing laser separation of chemical isotopes with the aim of commercialising the technology. The technology commercialisation project is being conducted at GLE’s Wilmington, North Carolina facility and at Silex’s Sydney facility.
Construction of full-scale laser and separator equipment is being deployed at GLE’s Test Loop facility in Wilmington, with the aim of completing a commercial-scale pilot demonstration (Technology Readiness Level 6 – TRL-6) of the SILEX technology by mid-2024. The next step will be construction of the PLEF Multi-purpose Production Plant.
The DOE’s Paducah site hosted the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, constructed in 1952 to produce enriched uranium, initially for nuclear weapons and later for NPP fuel. Commercial enrichment was conducted under lease from 1993 until 2013 when operations ceased, and the gaseous diffusion facilities were transferred to the DOE Environmental Management (EM) programme. EM has conducted extensive cleanup activities at the site since the late 1980s and is currently deactivating the plant facilities with the aim of releasing the site for industrial and community development.
DOE agreed in 2016 to sell GLE around 300,000 tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride to provide the feedstock for PLEF to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6) equivalent to natural uranium over three decades. The plant’s annual output of up to 5m pounds of U3O8 (1923 tU) will be sold on the global uranium market.
GLE says that, subject to various factors, including the successful completion of pilot demonstration, industry and government support, a feasibility study for the PLEF, and continued supportive market conditions, it will continue to advance its commercialisation activities in order to support the potential commencement of commercial operations at the PLEF ahead of the original plan of 2030.
