Right: Located in Ontario, Port Hope is the only uranium conversion facility in Canada but companies like Cameco now want to complete the whole fuel cycle Source: Cameo
Liebenberg: It will be relatively easy for Canada to
get into centrifuge enrichment. That is an established technology. So, if it really wanted to get into enrichment, it could just go the centrifuge route. However, many Canadian companies, like Cameco, have opted for laser technologies because laser enrichment has always been seen as the holy grail of enrichment. But there is a stigma that laser enrichment doesn’t work. After nearly 50 years of development and 26 countries trying it out, no one has been able to build a commercial facility. The scaling challenges have been a big issue. So, taking the laser technology route, which has had slow progress over the years, has contributed to this.
NEI: Can you elaborate on the challenges of scaling laser enrichment technologies? Liebenberg: It has been a long road for laser enrichment technologies. There are three different laser enrichment processes. The first is AVLIS, which stands for atomic vapor laser isotope separation. The scaling challenges with AVLIS are two-fold. The first problem is it vaporises the uranium metal, but the vapour pressure being very low makes it economically unviable. The second problem is the collection efficiency. The vaporised uranium is very hot and corrosive, making the collection of the enriched uranium troublesome. So, after billions of dollars spent on development, all the countries trying it – the US, France, Japan and more – gave up on this. The second laser process is MLIS, standing for molecular
laser isotope separation. Dozens of countries have tried this as well. It works in the lab, but the scaling challenges
here are specifically in the lasers it uses. Without getting too technical, MLIS uses lasers with a 16-micron (µm) wavelength, which is an extremely big, complex system to be able to scale up easily. The third process is CRISLA, or condensation repression
isotope selective laser activation, which is what our company does. CRISLA uses a 5µm wavelength, which has nowhere near the same complexities as the 16µm, making it more easily are scalable. We believe that CRISLA has a path to commercialisation that avoids the challenges AVLIS and MLIS faced.
NEI: How would a domestic uranium enrichment programme enhance Canada’s nuclear industry and address broader energy concerns? Yu: Back in the 1960s and 1970s, the US was the biggest exporter of nuclear fuel and services, and now it is the biggest importer. Canada is in the same bucket where it needs enrichment capabilities so that it doesn’t have to be in that situation of foreign reliance. I think it will serve as a key component to reinforcing its energy security. In addition, if you look at Canada’s demographics, there
are a lot of remote communities and towns in the northern territories that could benefit from all these new nuclear technologies. They truck in millions of dollars of diesel to provide fuel for the power generators in these towns. If we are able to now go into these northern territories and build microreactors alongside enrichment facilities, providing the whole fuel cycle, with uranium mines already close by [many are located in northern Saskatchewan, just
Right: LIS Technologies was selected for the US Department of Energy’s $3.4bn LEU Acquisition Programme Source: LIS Technologies
36 | November 2025 |
www.neimagazine.com
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
