Why Can Fuel Be Half the Cost of a Small Nuclear Reactor?

Scott Nolan says fuel can be about half the cost of energy from a small modular reactor. Once the plant is no longer a multi-billion-dollar construction project, the fuel bill is a much larger share of the total. At today's market prices, and depending on the design, enrichment can push the levelized cost of energy to about 50 percent fuel. That cost counts both the capital that built the reactor and the cost of running it.

That is the second half of what he saw in 2023. Removing the fuel bottleneck was not enough. For advanced reactors to scale on HALEU, that fuel also has to get cheaper, and enrichment is the piece he thinks a new company can move.