Urenco produces first low-enriched uranium plus. Urenco USA, the nation's only commercial-scale producer of enriched uranium, has successfully completed production of its first product cylinder of low-enriched uranium plus (LEU+). It is the first commercial production of LEU+ in the Western world and provides new fuel options for existing light water reactors and new advanced reactor designs that will utilize higher levels of enriched uranium. Article continues below this ad "There are several new advanced reactor designs being developed that will use the LEU+ fuel for their operations. A good example is our contract with Aalo Atomics (also based in Texas), which plans to use it in their commercial design," Jeremy Derryberry, director of communications with Urenco, told the Reporter-Telegram. Urenco USA operates the National Enrichment Facility in Eunice, New Mexico, which began operations in 2010. The facility's existing annual capacity of 4.3 million separative work units (SWU) can meet approximately one-third of current U.S. demand for low-enriched uranium. With the availability of LEU+, existing light-water reactors will have the opportunity to operate for longer cycles, reducing the frequency of refueling outages, as well as operations and maintenance costs. LEU+ can also serve as an important feedstock for producing high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) and will increase the amount of fuel a dedicated HALEU facility could produce, which will support deployment of other advanced reactor designs. The company is investing significantly in its New Mexico facility to expand its domestic enrichment production capacity to more than 7 million separative work units (SWU) over the next decade. To support this expansion, Urenco will begin construction of a new enrichment plant at the facility in 2029 and will install 2.1 million SWU of new enrichment capacity, with the initial cascades starting production in 2032 and additional cascades installed through 2036. This new capacity will also be available to produce LEU+. Nov 6, 2026 Oil Editor Mella McEwen is the oil editor for the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

Aalo Atomics plans $25M Georgetown plant to mass-produce mini nuclear reactors. Published on September 17, 2026 A warehouse just off Interstate 35 in Georgetown could soon become ground zero for a new kind of nuclear power plant, one built on an assembly line rather than poured in place over a decade. Aalo Atomics, an Austin-based nuclear engineering company, plans a $25 million advanced manufacturing facility at 4813 N. I-35, renovating an existing 204,350-square-foot one-story warehouse into lab, machine-shop and production-floor space. According to Community Impact, Aalo plans to expand its advanced manufacturing operations to Georgetown, per a filing tied to the project. The project's estimated timeline runs from Nov. 15 through Jan. 30, 2028, and the site is expected to provide lab, machine-shop and production-floor space for the company's work, according to permit details reported by communityimpact.com. A reactor built like a product, not a power plant. Aalo Atomics was founded in 2023 and designs and builds small, factory-made nuclear power plants, according to the seed report from Community Impact. The pitch is speed: while traditional nuclear plants can take a decade to construct, Aalo builds compact reactors in a factory and ships them to wherever power is needed, per the same account. The company intends its plants primarily to power artificial intelligence data centers, which have become one of the country's fastest-growing sources of electricity demand. Aalo says its designs will be optimized for simplicity, manufacturability and technological readiness, according to aalo.com. The company has described itself as a nuclear engineering company created to make reactor deployment highly predictable and economical, and it says its mass-manufacturing approach is meant to unlock cost reduction through scale, according to the company's own site. Critical Test Reactor reached chain reaction in under eight months. The Georgetown project follows a milestone Aalo announced this summer: the company says it brought a commercial-scale advanced reactor to criticality on July 4 at 12:20 a.m. Mountain Time. Aalo Atomics successfully started a self-sustaining nuclear reaction with its Critical Test Reactor, according to the company's website, and the reactor was built in less than eight months from groundbreaking to sustained chain reaction. The Critical Test Reactor includes a full-scale core demonstrating the nuclear components of Aalo's planned 10 MWe reactors, aalo.com states, and the company says the CTR can safely run and generate energy. Aalo has said it plans to deploy those 10 MWe reactors inside 50 MWe Aalo Pods, which it describes as fully modular nuclear plants purpose-built for AI data centers. The company's ultimate aim, according to its own statements, is to mass-produce Aalo Pods to supply constant, clean electricity to AI data centers. Betting on scale to cut costs. Aalo has said it is expanding into a one-million-square-foot factory to apply assembly-line manufacturing to reactor production, a step beyond the smaller Georgetown site now moving through the permitting process. The company has also said its first reactor was fabricated in Austin and turned on in Idaho, and it has set a target of reaching 3 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity costs while maintaining safety, according to aalo.com. Nuclear reactors provide energy by splitting atoms rather than burning fossil fuels, a process that releases no greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, per Community Impact's reporting. That framing has become part of the broader pitch from companies chasing compact, factory-built reactors: the Idaho National Laboratory describes microreactors generally as factory-built and transportable, with potential uses including process heat for manufacturing, mining and industry, according to inl.gov. Other companies are chasing similar ground; Radiant has said it plans to roll out its first factory-built portable nuclear generator by 2028, according to radiantnuclear.com, while Rolls-Royce has marketed its own small modular reactor as a factory-built, fully integrated nuclear solution using commercially available technology, per rolls-royce.com. For now, the Georgetown facility remains in the planning stages, with an estimated project window stretching into early 2028. As Aalo works to translate its Idaho test reactor into a repeatable factory product, the North I-35 warehouse could become one of the company's key manufacturing sites for reactors meant to feed the region's growing appetite for AI-driven power demand.