HALEU supply constraint

The shortage of Western capacity to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium, the 5% to just under 20% uranium-235 fuel many advanced reactor designs are built around. The World Nuclear Association names Russia's Tenex, part of Rosatom, as the only commercial supplier, and the war in Ukraine, sanctions and the US ban on Russian uranium imports in May 2024 turned that from a cost issue into a strategic supply risk for Western developers. Several governments and companies have since funded new enrichment capacity, but building and licensing a new enrichment line, and qualifying the fuel made from it, takes years, so the constraint affects how plausible a near-term timeline is for any design that assumes HALEU fuel. It is a shortage of plants, not of uranium.

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concept:haleu-supply-constraint

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