From Cold War Tech to Climate Solution: LIS Technologies and the Resurrection of Laser Uranium Enrichment in the U.S
Until recently, America’s nuclear technology was frozen in time. The 1980s were a period of growth and promise for the United States’ nuclear industry, but that all changed when the country switched to cheap, imported nuclear fuel. Now, the U.S. is moving back to domestic fuel production, and LIS Technologiesis leading the charge.
LIS Technologies is a company focused on laser uranium enrichment. To be useful as fuel for nuclear reactors, uranium must have a much higher concentration of the specific isotope U-235 than it does naturally. Uranium enrichment involves increasing the U-235 concentration to usable levels.
Laser enrichment is an efficient method of uranium enrichment that involves using lasers to excite uranium hexafluoride molecules. It might sound futuristic (and in many ways, it is), but laser enrichment emerged in the 1970’s as the “holy grail of enrichment.”.
“The U.S. used to be the world’s biggest producer of enriched uranium,” says Christo Liebenberg, President and co-founder of LIS Technologies. “But in 1989, the Iron Curtain over the Soviet Union came down, and the world markets opened up to Russia. They started flooding the world markets, and they sold enriched uranium for less than half the price compared to what it was.”
Seeing an opportunity to cut costs, the U.S. abandoned its uranium enrichment efforts seemingly overnight.
“That tanked or sunk many, many technologies,” Liebenberg continues. “Our own CRISLA [condensation repression isotope selective laser activation] technology was actually at that point well underway.”
Now, decades later, the tides have turned. Increased geopolitical uncertainty led to the passage of the Prohibiting Russian Uranium Imports Act. Suddenly, there was a need for domestically enriched uranium once again, this time not only for energy independence and energy security, but also for national security.
LIS Technologies is one of a handful of companies chosen by the Department of Energy to build a domestic nuclear pipeline. In some ways, the choice represents the U.S. nuclear industry coming full circle.
Dr. Jeff Eerkens developed the CRISLA process of uranium enrichment, a method that was in its infancy when the United States pulled the plug on domestic nuclear technology. He’s also one of the co-founders of LIS Technologies.
Even the company’s location, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is a nod to the history of America’s nuclear industry. “The Manhattan Project is where it started,” says Liebenberg. “It started in Oak Ridge. The material was made exactly at the same spot where we’re going back.”
“The original Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant has been decommissioned,” he continues. “It’s now a cleaned-up Brownfield site, with several new buildings rising up to attract nuclear companies. And our recently renovated building is right there on that site. Full circle for tradition.”
The push to enrich uranium domestically was born out of a need for greater national security. Still, it also has another key benefit. Nuclear energy has long been touted as a climate-friendly alternative, but until now, no one has been able to reliably scale the production of nuclear fuel using laser isotope separation.
It will take a few years for the company’s DOE contract to be fulfilled. Understandably, there’s a significant amount of red tape surrounding the production of nuclear energy, and LIS Technologies must first demonstrate the technology and its scalability.
However, if all goes well, the U.S. could be headed toward a new era of energy independence, national security, and cleaner energy.
