Nuclear Monitor #919

Jan van Evert, reporter Nuclear Monitor

The United Kingdom is to invest £196 million  to build a uranium enrichment plant in Capenhurst, Cheshire in the North West of England. The facility will be built by Urenco (which is part-owned by the U.K. government) which will co-fund the facility. The new plant will produce high assay low-enriched uranium or HALEU (enriched to greater than 5 and less than 20 weight-percent U-235) at the rate of 10 tons per year by 2031 for export or use domestically. The funding is part of a £300 million ($380 million) programme announced in January. The plan is still in place after the Labour party was voted to power on July 4.

The government said it would ensure other countries are not reliant on Russia for this advanced nuclear fuel, a market which it currently dominates. Britain will be the first European nation outside Russia to produce HALEU. Officials said the fuel was needed to power new advanced modular reactors which they say will be key to meeting ambitions to quadruple the UK’s nuclear capacity by 2050.

HALEU is a controversial nuclear fuel: it can be used to make nuclear weapons.