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America Begs For Speed, Gets Bureaucracy: Thiel-Backed Nuclear Enrichment Project Told To Wait As Orano Misses Deadlines

Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Authored...

Two recently published letters from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) display a painfully large gap in the sense of urgency felt by America's two newest uranium enrichment projects.

On October 29, the NRC published its acceptance of General Matters' new license application for its uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky. In the same week, the NRC also published the long list of failures from Orano's Project IKE enrichment plant planned for Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The American company was begging to go faster and was told to be patient, while the French company was given an open field and decided to drop the ball.

"Best I can do is 18 months"

General Matter submitted their license request for a new uranium enrichment facility at the end of September. The company asked for an accelerated NRC review, which means they were looking for a license decision to be returned to them in 12 months, compared to the standard timeline of 18 months.

The NRC praised "the quality and completeness of the application" and said General Matter's early engagement let staff accept it in "approximately half the timeframe typically allotted for an acceptance review."

Despite the application's quality, the NRC refused to open the fast lane.

Instead of blaming the company, though, the NRC actually blamed their own shortcomings for not committing to the faster timeline…

"Given the anticipated increase in the workload and associated resource constraints, the NRC staff cannot commit at this time to a schedule shorter than the estimated April 2028 completion date,"

It's not a complete loss. The NRC also stated in the letter that if the company "maintains this strong level of engagement, supplies timely and complete information, and NRC resources are available," staff will "consider opportunities to expedite portions of the review."

Translation: We will go as fast as you let us.

General Matter was incubated at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and is run by Scott Nolan, an early SpaceX engineer. The company claims it will use its own proprietary process on DOE land at the old Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the last fully U.S.-owned enrichment plant until it closed in 2013.

When we covered its Ex-Im Bank backing in March, the company had "yet to make any serious progress" at Paducah. Compared to earlier this year, the company now has multiple site works underway, including cleared land and utility installation.

Driving slow in the fast lane

Orano, the French state-backed enrichment giant, got everything America’s General Matter asked for.

In May 2026, the NRC published an accelerated review timeline for the Project IKE facility planned for Tennessee, “assuming high-quality and timely inputs”. The review was expected to be completed in April 2027.

With the U.S. commercial nuclear fleet importing 26% of its uranium enrichment needs from Russia...

one would think there would be a sense of urgency to construct domestic enrichment capacity as quickly as possible to remove the Russian dependency...

Apparently, Orano isn't feeling the pressure. The “timely inputs” requested by the NRC either failed to be of high quality or have failed to show up at all.

One set of the NRC's requests for additional information were expected by August. As of last week, Orano had provided "final responses to only a portion" of them.

The NRC listed nine technical areas with neither a final response, or even a draft, including topics concerning fire and chemical safety, and site geology. The federal regulator also flagged Orano's structural design criteria as a “high-impact technical issue” that has actually been a problem area since the beginning of the application process.

One of the biggest opportunities for shortening the license review timeline was supposed to be Project IKE's similarity to Eagle Rock. Eagle Rock was a planned enrichment facility that made it through the NRC licensing process in the 2010s. Orano claimed their new facility planned for Tennessee was extremely similar to Eagle Rock and should enable the NRC to abbreviate some of the data reviews.

Nope.

After waiting long enough, the NRC stated “the crosswalk was not provided” to explain the similarities and differences between the two projects. The presenting of the crosswalk data wouldn't have mattered, as NRC staff have since found “limited similarities” anyway.

By mid-October, Orano had asked for more time and is now not expected to submit answers to outstanding questions until December, over three months late. The NRC accordingly moved its license decision target to June 2027, two months to the right from the original target.

The NRC also provided further warning that if the answers are incomplete or late, “the staff may assign an 18-month review schedule.”

Perhaps the most frustrating part of this scenario is just how much American taxpayer money France’s Orano was happy to take without putting in the effort. The company was awarded $900 million by the DOE in January 2026 to build out new low-enriched uranium (LEU) enrichment capacity in the U.S.

Our readers might additionally remember, in September, when we covered commentary from DOE officials that were pushing enrichment companies to build capacity as fast as possible.

“Washington is ​urging the companies who enrich ⁠the uranium to fuel nuclear plants, including Orano of France, and US companies, Centrus and General Matter, to develop enrichment capacity as quickly as possible, said Michael Goff, US principal deputy assistant ​secretary at the Department of Energy.”

The French have responded by dragging their feet and kicking the timeline to the right before construction even starts.

We wonder what Centrus and General Matter could each do with an additional $450 million…

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