17 - Elmer Dyke: Fuel, the Key to a Robust Nuclear Industry

Internationally-recognized nuclear fuels expert Elmer Dyke joins UCAN Power's Advanced Nuclear podcast to discuss the state of the fuel industry. Elmer provides an in-depth overview of all segments of the nuclear fuel supply chain -- mining, conversion, enrichment, and fuel fabrication -- and provides critical insights about recent fuel cycle developments and the challenges faced by the industry. He analyzes the impact of the ban on Russian uranium imports, discusses the new enrichment capacity being brought to the market, and describes the new fuel forms and enrichment levels that will be needed to support the growing set of Generation IV reactor vendors. Without fuel, there is no nuclear industry, and this is an important and impactful discussion about this critical topic.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

01:26 Current State of the Nuclear Fuel Industry

04:15 Uranium Mining in the U.S.

07:54 The Conversion Process and Its Challenges

14:58 Enrichment: The Key to Reactor Fuel

17:20 Impact of Russian Supply on the Market

27:08 Fuel Fabrication and Its Role in the Cycle

29:30 Transitioning to New Fuel Sources

34:07 The Future of Enrichment Technologies

37:13 Understanding Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) and HALU

46:34 Challenges and Opportunities in Advanced Reactor Deployment

48:54 The Nuclear Fuel Industry's Capacity for Expansion

57:01 The Future Landscape of Nuclear Fuels by 2030