Artificial intelligence has infiltrated nearly every industry and every facet of life. AI depends on vast data centers, and those data centers have increased annual electricity consumption nationwide by 15%–20%. The unprecedented new need for power has created a nuclear revival, and LIS Technologies is helping to fuel it.
As the worldwide supply of fossil fuels dwindles and the U.S. looks to cleaner energy sources, nuclear power is gradually becoming more commonplace. However, while the country is developing the next generation of advanced nuclear reactors, it’s becoming more difficult to find the enriched uranium needed to fuel them.
LIS Technologies is developing its pioneering and patented laser uranium enrichment process, a highly efficient process of producing nuclear fuel. As the demand for enriched uranium continues to outstrip the available supply, laser enrichment might be exactly what the U.S. needs to close the gap.
“The energy demand is just huge, especially with AI centers and data centers,” says Christo Liebenberg, LIS Technologies’ co-founder and President. “At the same time, the supply is going down because we have limited the supply from Russia.”
Liebenberg is referring to the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act, a law banning the import of Russian nuclear fuel in the interest of energy security. The other two major producers of uranium, Niger and Kazakhstan, have faced supply disruptions.
Geopolitical tensions and uncertainty have made it clear that the U.S. needs its own nuclear supply chain. The Department of Energy’s Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) Acquisition Program has awarded contracts to several companies, including LIS Technologies, to establish a domestic fuel pipeline.
But can their efforts keep up with soaring power demand? In all likelihood, it’s going to be a challenge.
“Right now, the U.S. has about 94 plants with a nuclear power capacity of 100 gigawatts. It’s roughly one gigawatt per nuclear power plant,” says Liebenberg. “The projection is that by 2050, we’ll need three times that amount of power, so we’ll need 300 gigawatts of capacity by 2050.”
“So in the next 25 years, we need 200 gigawatts of extra power, which means roughly 200 additional nuclear power plants,” he continues. “That’s about one plant every 45 days. So you can see that the supply chain has to ramp up hugely to be able to get to that — three times more power by 2050.”
That might sound like an insurmountable goal, but given the efficiency of laser enrichment, it’s possible. Today’s nuclear reactors usually run on one of two types of fuel, and LIS Technologies can produce both.
Low-enriched uranium (LEU), which contains up to 5% of the uranium isotope U-235, is typically used in nuclear power plants and older reactors. Newer reactors generally rely on high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), which contains 20% U-235.
With LIS Technologies’ method of laser enrichment, creating both LEU and HALEU is faster than ever before. “We can do single-stage LEU and double-stage HALEU,” says Liebenberg. This means that natural uranium can be enriched to LEU within a single enrichment stage/step, while HALEU can be produced in as few as 2 stages or steps.
While the ongoing enriched uranium shortage casts a shadow of uncertainty, it’s nonetheless an exciting time for the U.S. nuclear industry. The nuclear renaissance has only just begun.
