Front-end cost / core
Uranium + conversion + enrichmentNUCLEAR ATLAS / FUEL ECONOMICS
HALEU · Core cost & market scale
Change the inputs.
See the scale.
How many reactors make a meaningful enrichment customer? Explore the fuel bill and market footprint together. Volume is not a guaranteed discount.
Annual enrichment demand
Urenco + Orano capacity
24.7m SWU/year comparisonNameplate, not available supplyIllustrative assumptions · 2026 constant dollars · Front-end subtotal excludes deconversion, fabrication, delivery, storage and separately negotiated fees.
01What one core costs
Effective $ / SWU
SWU per initial core
Natural uranium feed per core
Annual front-end spend
02How much of the market?
HALEU / year
Planned HALEU output and conventional SWU capacity answer different questions. Neither shows an uncommitted, specification-matched allocation. Bars cap at 100%; labels show the full ratio.
Compare deployment scenarios
All rows use your current core and pricing assumptions. Initial cores plus the same annual reload quantity, if entered.
| Initial cores / year | HALEU / year | Total SWU / year | Front-end spend / year | Global SWU share |
|---|
Initial cores needed to reach 1% of Urenco + Orano capacity, after reload demand
Annual feed / 2024 mine output (61,924 tU)
Annual product × $17,000/kgU DOE comparator; separate scope, not additive
Explore hypothetical supplier economics
These are the workbook’s illustrative plant assumptions, not supplier cost disclosures. More paid output, longer capital recovery and cheaper financing are separate changes. None follows automatically from an order.
| Driver | Paid output / year | Final-stage cost / SWU |
|---|
Requested plant utilization
Hypothetical all-stage rate, after markup
Additional whole cores / year after other customers and reloads
Base recovery: 10 years at 12% real cost of capital. Base Buyer commitment: zero. Combined recovery and financing are controlled above. A recovery life is not a purchase-contract term. Supplier costs do not replace your selected price in the main model.
Test buyer terms & upfront funding
Independent pricing illustration with no confirmed allocation. Constant annual committed demand, year-end deliveries and invoices, equal annual prepayment credits, 2026 constant dollars. Funding changes effective cost; it does not infer a quoted discount.
Present-value effective $ / committed SWU
Present value of buyer payments
Upfront cash at risk
Assumptions, formulas & sources
Snapshot, not live synchronization
Fuel-demand and core-cost model snapshot, September 16, 2026. This standalone calculator uses the accounting and references documented below. Inputs are illustrative planning assumptions.
Presentation starts at 50 cores/year. Use presets to explore 20 to 52,560 initial cores per year. Defaults are 500 kgU/core and a hypothetical $300/SWU single rate. “Reset” restores presentation defaults.
Fuel basis remains illustrative
500 kgU means uranium mass, not compound or finished-fuel mass. The rounded “20%” assumption is treated as rounded to 19.75%. Initial cores only unless annual reload kgU is explicitly entered. No dated deployment ramp, losses or inventory buffer. No design approval or supplier qualification is implied.
Pricing evidence
$180/upstream SWU and $55/kgU conversion are legacy workbook inputs, not verified offers. $1,099.37/final-stage SWU is the 2023 NIA $1,000 assumption multiplied by 334.980 / 304.702 CPI. Uranium: $96.50/lb U₃O₈, attributed in the workbook to Cameco’s August 31, 2026 indicator. $300 is a hypothetical single rate.
Capacity comparisons
Urenco results: planned initial 27 tU/year HALEU, early 2030s. Potential doubling: 54 tU/year, demand-dependent. Centrus planned initial buildout: 12 tU/year; first new capacity expected 2029, full ramp unspecified.
Broad market & feed context
Workbook denominators: Urenco + Orano 24.7m SWU/year; global 2025 capacity 68.076m; US 2025 purchased enrichment 12.710m. Global includes Russia and China. These are dated, non-interchangeable comparisons. NEA/IAEA 2024 mine output: 61,924 tU.
Commercial limits
No volume-discount curve, binding purchase obligation, supplier allocation, contribution margin or financing concession has been supplied. The DOE $17,000/kgU comparator bundles material and other obligations with separate capacity support. It is not an enrichment-only or finished-fuel quotation. Comparisons are carried from the workbook; no new market verification was performed for this conversion.
Accounting used in the workbook
V(x) = (1 − 2x) × ln((1 − x) / x)
F = (product assay − tails assay) / (feed assay − tails assay)
SWU/kgU = V(product) + (F − 1) × V(tails) − F × V(feed)
Final-stage feed ratio = (product − 0.00711) / (0.0495 − 0.00711)
Final-stage SWU = V(product) + (ratio − 1) × V(0.00711) − ratio × V(0.0495)
Upstream SWU = total SWU − final-stage SWU
Front-end $/kgU = F × (2.599776385057202 × $/lb U₃O₈ + conversion $/kgU feed) + enrichment $/kgU
Annual kgU = initial cores/year × core kgU + annual reload kgU
Capital recovery factor = r / (1 − (1 + r)^(−years)); at r = 0, use 1/years
Higher-stage tails receive full recycle credit at natural assay. Contractual ownership and treatment require confirmation. The model represents material and work accounting, not a plant configuration.