An operating commercial nuclear reactor in the United States is set to receive the world’s first fuel reload enriched beyond long-standing industry limits.

French nuclear engineering firm Framatome has signed a commercial deal to supply fuel containing uranium-235 above the standard five percent weight threshold. The agreement marks the first time an active, full-scale commercial reactor will run on this higher-grade fuel design.

Deliveries are scheduled to begin in spring 2028 from Framatome’s manufacturing facility in Richland, Washington. The contract also includes options for additional batches in the coming years.

Standard commercial reactors shut down every 18 months to replace spent fuel rods. Because the new fuel contains a higher concentration of fissile uranium, the reactor can generate heat for longer periods before needing fresh supplies. 

Plant operators will be able to stretch their operating cycles to 24 months, cutting down on expensive refueling outages and keeping the plant running continuously for longer stretches.

The higher enrichment also unlocks higher fuel burnup limits. In nuclear engineering, burnup measures how much thermal energy operators can extract from a given amount of heavy metal. A higher burnup rate means the reactor draws more electricity out of each fuel assembly, generating less waste per megawatt-hour produced.

The technological leap required years of regulatory and logistical groundwork. Framatome spent four years overhauling its Richland plant to handle the material safely. The site recently secured formal approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to fabricate fuel assemblies with both higher enrichment levels and elevated burnup limits.

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