US-based Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) has received preliminary approval for a comprehensive incentives package worth up to $98.9m from the Commonwealth of Kentucky and McCracken County. These performance-based incentives support the development of GLE’s planned Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF), which is expected to be the single largest capital investment in Western Kentucky’s history at $1.76bn.
GLE, jointly owned by Australia’s Silex Systems (51%) and Canada’s Cameco (49%), in 2024 acquired a 665-acre land parcel for PLEF strategically located adjacent to the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) former first generation Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PGDP). It provides access to the cylinder yard where depleted UF6 tails inventories are stored, minimising transportation between the PGDP and the PLEF site. The land, previously owned by the Commonwealth of Kentucky and managed by the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources (KDFWR), was acquired through an agreement involving the Commonwealth, KDFWR, and the Paducah-McCracken County Industrial Development Authority.
The DOE’s Paducah site hosted the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, constructed in 1952 to produce enriched uranium, initially for nuclear weapons and later for NPP fuel. Commercial enrichment was conducted under lease from 1993 until 2013 when operations ceased, and the gaseous diffusion facilities were transferred to the DOE Environmental Management (EM) programme. EM has conducted extensive cleanup activities at the site since the late 1980s and is currently deactivating the plant facilities with the aim of releasing the site for industrial and community development.
DOE agreed in 2016 to sell GLE around 300,000 tonnes of depleted uranium hexafluoride to provide the feedstock for PLEF to produce uranium hexafluoride (UF6) equivalent to natural uranium over three decades. The plant’s annual output of up to 5m pounds of U3O8 (1923 tU) will be sold on the global uranium market.
In September 2025, GLE announced completion of a large-scale enrichment demonstration testing campaign at its Test Loop facility in Wilmington, North Carolina. GLE said it had collected extensive performance data providing confidence that its laser-based uranium enrichment process can be commercially deployed. Earlier in 2025, GLE submitted an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for PLEF, where it plans to deploy the technology commercially to re-enrich some 200,000 tonnes of depleted uranium tails from legacy DOE gaseous diffusion plant operations.
The incentives package is tied to GLE reaching specific investment and job creation thresholds. Some $24m will come through a 15-year agreement preliminarily approved by the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority (KEDFA). Another $3m in tax incentives will come through the Kentucky Enterprise Initiative Act (KEIA), also approved by KEDFA for construction and equipment costs. Roughly $72m is expected from local and other sources, although specific details remain confidential due to nondisclosure agreements.
GLE’s has also been backed by approximately $600m in privately funded engineering, design, manufacturing, and licensing investments across North Carolina and Kentucky. The company was recently selected for an award of up to $28.5m from the Department of Energy (DOE) to continue advancing next generation laser-based uranium enrichment technology for the nuclear fuel cycle.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear noted: “I’m excited to see this incredible new investment from GLE and the 240 great job opportunities it is creating for families in Paducah and the surrounding region. Our economy continues to set records, and today’s announcement is the single largest investment announcement we have on record for Western Kentucky. This project will solidify our role as a leader in the country’s nuclear power sector and will transform our economy, creating opportunities for Kentucky families for generations.”
GLE’s uranium enrichment technology has never been deployed commercially. It operates, in principle, by using lasers to selectively vibrate only the uranium-235 molecules in the tails leftover from the gaseous diffusion process. It then separates those out from the inert uranium-238 molecules also present in the depleted nuclear fuel.
GLE is not the only enrichment project at Paducah. General Matter in August 2025 leased a 100-acre parcel at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant to build a new private-sector commercial facility. The project is valued at approximately $1.5bn and aims to produce both low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). The lease provides General Matter with a minimum of 7,600 cylinders of existing uranium hexafluoride to supply fuel for future re-enrichment operations. Reprocessing of uranium hexafluoride saves about $800m in avoided disposal costs while General Matter benefits from a consistent supply of US-origin uranium hexafluoride feed.
GLE is also not the only company pursuing laser enrichment. In January, US-based laser enrichment technology start-up LIS (Laser Isotope Separation) Technologies (LIST) announced plans to invest $1.38bn in a commercial scale laser-based uranium enrichment facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The enrichment plant will be built on the footprint of the historic K-25 Uranium Enrichment site, where the company has acquired the 206-acre Duct Island (now renamed LIST Island) for $8m. This came after LIST raised $17m in an oversubscribed funding round, bringing total capital raised to around $64m.
