COMMERCIAL HALEU | COVER STORY
Above: The centrifuges for the new HALEU facility will come from the Urenco-Orano joint venture company ETC
“Even though we’re going to use exactly the same machinery we’re using today to enrich uranium, we need to build a dedicated facility,” explains Mori, adding: “Because there’s more controls and because the safety case is effectively going to be different there is the need to build a new facility and thus for significant investment.” The extra requirements cover multiple aspects of the HALEU enrichment process and stem back to international standards established decades ago by the IAEA and these general principles don’t really change although the details of their implementation do, as Mori explains: “Where you have more enrichment you need to redo your calculations to prove to the regulator that under the new framework that the safety case is still sound. We also have a very strict material control and accountancy that applies to all of our enriched products and to all the uranics that we have at our sites. The same applies to HALEU. However, the level of detail is even higher and the reporting is even stricter. That’s part of the process to isolate these functions into a dedicated facility.” Indeed, a wholly separate facility is needed and not just
because of the increased reporting requirements, even though nuclear enrichment is already a heavily regulated industry. Mori explains: “Although this is known technology and there’s no research and development needed, it is a totally new plant so we’ll have special sampling systems, new labs, new maintenance areas and so on. It’s a complete standalone with its own testing facilities not sharing anything with the existing facilities. That’s a requirement because, if you imagine taking a pump out of the plant, it will have residues of HALEU in it so it can’t be taken outside of the HALEU fence. It will be part of the safety case to be inspected or maintained within the HALEU facility. We don’t want to have slightly below 20% enriched material to be mixed with standard deliveries We want to make sure that everything is managed properly and that there’s no opportunity to have higher enriched material where it’s not supposed to be. Even the chemistry services will be performed within the HALEU island. All the logistics within the plant and the interfaces with the current plant also need to be addressed”. Furthermore, the facility is being built with future
enlargement in mind. “If we take the nominal enrichment level of 19.75% enrichment, the nominal capacity for one cascade is about 10 tonnes a year. There is inherent flexibility and the plant is designed to host two cascades if there’s enough demand. We can double the capacity very, very easily. All the infrastructure is being designed for two cascades,” states Mori.
Considering the level of preparation needed the plant is still in the earliest phases of development with the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) process just about to begin. Nonetheless, substantial progress has been made since the project was publicly revealed in May 2024. “We have the conceptual design done and we have identified the area in Capenhurst where it’s going to be built. A new fence has been installed that actually shows the perimeter of the plant. Physically, we’re doing ground testing and sampling and preparing the site characterisation. We are initiating enabling works, things like utilities, new transformer switch yards and we have also some old utilities that need to be moved. We’re finishing the enabling works as Capenhurst is a legacy site so there are a few things that need to be moved around. Then it also has to go into the detailed design phase, that cannot be underestimated, and then execution. The project team has been appointed and it’s in place. Reporting to government will begin in September. It’s all full steam ahead,” says Mori, noting that some contractors are already in place, such as the Enrichment Technology Company, a Urenco-Orano joint venture which physically designs and builds the centrifuge cascades. “There’s some significant preparatory work that needs to happen. The current estimate, as announced by the UK government earlier, is early 2030s. I think that all things considered six to seven years from now [for commissioning] is not bad.” Broadly similar to existing enrichment technology
operating at the Capenhurst site, Mori is keen to point out that the new facility will use the latest and best technology available. “We never stop developing or refining our technology with all the fine-tuning based on lessons learned over 54 years of enriching. The centrifuges themselves won’t be very different from what we currently are operating in Capenhurst so we know them very well.” Even so, although it is using existing technology and it’s a
small plant – much smaller than the current facility because the quantities are also much smaller – the HALEU plant represents a substantial investment. Mori explains: “It costs so much because it’s not just centrifuges, it’s a totally new, almost a standalone plant. Where we benefit though is, of course, from operations. We have experienced operators, we have experienced maintenance staff, we have all the chemistry personnel from the existing site. We do benefit from all the infrastructure that we have at site already, not just in terms of know-how, but also access to the site and the utilities that I mentioned.” But, as the market for HALEU is currently small and underdeveloped, government support is needed to
www.neimagazine.com | September 2024 | 35
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49
