Uranium Enrichment Today: Centrus Energy Corp. Eyes Expansion in Southern Ohio

Southern Ohio has become the grounds of a recent nuclear industry comeback, with new power plants and tech leading the way.

About 200 miles south of Cleveland is the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant: a sprawling site in southern Ohio that enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and reactors from the 1950s until 2001.

Surrounding areas have experienced contamination. Officials closed nearby Zahn Middle School in 2019 after radioactive elements were detected nearby, according to multiple reports.

However, in that same year, a corner of the Portsmouth property saw new life when Centrus Energy Corp. contracted with the U.S. Energy Department to build 16 centrifuges to produce the specialized high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) designed for advanced nuclear reactors. 

It’s the only U.S.-owned company with U.S.-developed technology that can make this type of uranium, says Dan Leistikow, Centrus’s vice president of corporate communications. And it has big plans to grow in Ohio.

“Our goal is to be able to scale up that facility with thousands of additional centrifuges to accommodate large-scale production of both low-enriched uranium and HALEU,” Leistikow says.

This June, the company announced that it produced nearly a ton of the critical fuel source.

Unlike the rushed, anxious years of the Manhattan Project, modern uranium enrichment looks different. Smaller, more energy-efficient gas centrifuges replaced gaseous diffusion plants, and new operations follow careful inspections, regulations, security and licensing, according to Leistikow.

The uranium Centrus creates in Piketon is mostly used for nuclear energy. But nuclear weapons aren’t out of the question. 

“When and if we’re asked, we stand ready to support those missions for the U.S. government,” Leistikow says, “and we could certainly do that in Piketon, alongside commercial civilian nuclear energy production.”

For now, it’s all about energy.

In 2023, Oklo, an advanced nuclear technology company headquartered in California, announced it would build two new nuclear power plants in southern Ohio, doubling the number of reactors in the state.

“Ohio really has a big role to play in the future of nuclear energy,” Leistikow says. “Really, I think there’s a story there about how Ohio could be at the forefront of the rebirth of American leadership in nuclear energy.”