The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) for Global Laser Enrichment’s (GLE’s) proposed Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility (PLEF), recommending that a construction and operation licence should be granted. The planned facility, located on a 322-acre site in McCracken County, Kentucky (five miles west of Paducah), which is adjacent to the site of the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
PLEF will use next-generation SILEX laser-based enrichment technology. It aims to produce natural-grade uranium by re-enriching depleted uranium tails currently stored at the site from legacy operations that ceased in 2013.
GLE’s application covers an annual production of up to 2,000 tonnes of equivalent natural uranium hexafluoride and 6m separative work units (SWUs) of low-enriched uranium (LEU). The licence would authorise the production of standard LEU (up to 5% uranium-235 assays) as well as LEU+ (up to 8% assays), a new fuel grade targeted at improving nuclear power plant economics.
The issue of the final EIS concludes an environmental assessment process that began with preliminary work in September 2025 and included a public comment period on a draft version earlier in 2026. The EIS follows NRC’s evaluation of GLE’s Environmental Report, submitted in December 2024, and consideration of comments received during the public review process.
In preparing the EIS, NRC considered environmental factors such as air quality, noise, potential groundwater contamination, and soil structure but also weighed those factors and more against potential costs and benefits of the project. The EIS found four areas where construction and operation of PLEF would have effects that the NRC’s environmental review guidance classifies as “small” to “medium” – surface water, ecology, transportation, and socioeconomics, with the PLEF’s possible socioeconomic effects being mostly positive.
However, this environmental clearance does not grant immediate permission to build or operate the plant. The final hurdle before an official licensing decision is the Final Safety Evaluation Report (SER), which handles the safety and security reviews and is expected from the NRC by the end of 2026.
GLE Vice President for Safety, Security & Compliance, Tim Knowles, noted: “The NRC’s issuance of the Final Environmental Impact Statement represents a significant regulatory milestone for the PLEF and reflects the NRC staff’s comprehensive and efficient review of our application. We appreciate the agency’s commitment to a rigorous, timely, and transparent licensing process.”
Most commercial uranium enrichment facilities use gas centrifuges, which separate isotopes by exploiting small differences in mass. Laser enrichment uses carefully controlled laser light to interact preferentially with selected isotopes. This technology will alter the energy use and configuration of the plant compared with conventional enrichment facilities. As yet, PLEF has not demonstrated those advantages during sustained commercial operation.
Depleted tails still contain some uranium-235 after earlier enrichment. Recovering useful material requires separating that isotope from a feedstock with a lower initial assay, while meeting chemical handling, measurement and safeguards requirements. The economics of the process depend on feed composition, separation efficiency, plant availability and demand for the recovered material.
GLE is developing the SILEX process under licence from Australian technology company Silex Systems. “We are delighted with the finalisation of the EIS and look forward to the final SER being issued in the coming weeks, which will represent another key milestone towards the finalisation of the PLEF licence early in 2027,” said Michael Goldsworthy, Silex’s CEO/Managing Director.
Demonstration work at Wilmington in North Carolina has been used to advance technology readiness, with the company reporting a Technology Readiness Level 6 result in 2025. However, engineering, equipment qualification and regulatory acceptance are still needed. The plant design requires uranium hexafluoride handling equipment, process monitoring, containment, material accounting and security systems integrated with the enrichment process.
Safeguards, accounting for nuclear material and uranium hexafluoride management will need to work alongside the separation equipment across the planned processing stages. Safeguards depend on reliable measurement and traceable inventories at receiving, processing and dispatch stages, while maintenance plans must account for potentially hazardous chemical operations.
These operations require trained personnel, documented operating limits and demonstrated system performance before the facility can enter commercial service. The equipment needs to be tested as part of a complete facility, not inferred from successful trials of the separation equipment alone. Regulatory acceptance requires documented operating procedures and evidence that linked systems work within the approved limits.
Although GLE has not yet announced completion of construction or commercial production, it has an offtake arrangement with Cameco for future material, which may support commercial planning without establishing that deliveries can begin on a specified date.
GLE has received significant financial support for PLEF. In March, the commonwealth of Kentucky and the government of Kentucky’s McCracken County gave preliminary approval to a performance-based economic incentive package for GLE worth approximately $98.9m. This followed a January award of $28.5m from the Department of Energy.
