Energy is something that countless people take for granted. But given the recent surge in AI data centers’ electricity usage, global power demand is rising to unprecedented levels. Nuclear power has emerged as a solution, and LIS Technologies is one of the companies on the frontlines.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) offers a clear idea of just how much the global energy market is expected to grow. By 2030, worldwide demand for power is predicted to reach 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) — roughly double what it is now.
Faced with a dwindling fossil fuel supply and mounting concern about environmental impacts, many countries are turning to nuclear energy. However, this method of generating power comes with its own nuclear fuel demands.
Nuclear power reactors are powered by enriched uranium, natural uranium that’s been modified to have a larger concentration of the fissile isotope U-235.
You can’t have nuclear power without enriched uranium, and the enriched uranium pipeline is currently facing a considerable chokepoint. Just four countries control 99% of the world’s uranium-enrichment capacity. Russia holds 40%.
Energy security is part of the rationale behind the nuclear energy pivot, at least in the U.S. But you can’t have true energy security without a domestic pipeline.
That’s why the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) launched the Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) Acquisition Program, a $3.4 billion project that aims to expand infrastructure for uranium enrichment in the United States.
The program awarded contracts to six companies, one being LIS Technologies, which has developed a uranium-enrichment technique that can be performed quickly and at scale.
LIS Technologies isn’t the first company to use laser enrichment, but it believes it will be the first company to successfully scale the process. “Laser enrichment has been around for 50 years, and no one has been able to successfully scale it, to take it from the lab to commercialization. Not one out of 26-plus countries,” says Christo Liebenberg, one of the co-founders of LIS Technologies.
“Now we’re using a laser and a process that is very different from what we’ve been using in the past. It’s much more scalable, with significantly higher reliability. We can now scale the entire process.”
The company’s ultra-efficient enrichment process traces back to the 1980s, when the United States was actively building out its nuclear industry. Dr. Jeff Eerkens, the company’s other co-founder, had developed the Condensation Repression Isotope Selective Laser Activation (CRISLA) process of enriching uranium. The technology was undergoing testing when the U.S. nuclear industry came to a sudden halt.
Once the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia began selling cheap enriched uranium onto the world markets to boost its economy. “They sold enriched uranium for less than half the price compared to what it was. That sank many, many technologies,” Liebenberg says.
“Our own CRISLA technology was actually at that point well underway. But they decided, ‘Why should we develop this further? We could just buy it on the international market.’ So that’s why CRISLA was stopped in 1993. In fact, the whole U.S. nuclear industry came to a standstill, and over the last 30 years, the US became dependent on imported nuclear fuel from Russia and Western Europe.”
For years, Liebenberg and Eerkens worked to improve the CRISLA technology. Today, their lasers have the potential to enrich uranium to usable levels at a fraction of the cost of older technologies.
“You irradiate the uranium once, and it’s enriched all the way from natural to the LEU [low-enriched uranium] level,” says Liebenberg. “If you irradiate it again, if you take that LEU and you’re in the second stage, you can go all the way to HALEU [high-assay low-enriched uranium], or 20%.”
The U.S. might not lead the world in terms of enrichment capacity just yet. However, thanks to LIS Technologies, it’s home to what may well be the most efficient uranium-enrichment technology ever created.
Armed with the power of ultra-efficient enrichment, the United States is well on its way to meeting the growing power demand and achieving its critical clean energy goals.