Hi Darren,
The comment there is referring to the US supporting the supply of Enriched Uranium outside of Russia – normally we like to keep things easily digestible, however some further detail seeing as you asked!
U3O8 (yellow cake) is first converted to uranium hexafluoride (UF6), then enriched before being fabricated into fuel rods for use in nuclear reactors. The enrichment process increases the percentage of U-235 in the mix. U-235 is fissile whereas U-238 is not.
Current enrichment technology is dominated by centrifuges – these use the 1.3% difference in mass between U-235 and U-238 to separate the isotopes. It is a difficult process and requires larges banks of centrifuges. The enrichment step in the fuel supply chain is dominated by Russia which has around 45% of the worlds enrichment capacity. Obviously, this concerns the US and they want to support enrichment from others. There are currently only 3 Western suppliers of conversion services (Cameco, Orano, Converdyn) and 2 Western suppliers of enrichment services (Urenco, Orano). The next generation of nuclear reactors called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) need a higher level of enriched fuel called High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU). There is no HALEU capacity in the West – it all comes from Russia.
Silex (SLX) has developed a new technology which could change the nuclear supply chain. It uses lasers to excite the uranium atoms, and then separate the U-235 and U-238 which are excited at different levels. They are in a JV with Cameco and Cameco has an option to acquire an additional 26% interest in the JV to move to 75%/25% Cameco/Silex split.
