The Department of Energy said Wednesday it will resume uranium recovery operations at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, utilizing the H-Canyon facility.
The uranium recovery work will help recover key isotopes that are currently hard to obtain in the United States and support scientific research as well as medical applications and commercial uses, according to a press release from DOE’s Office of Environmental Management.
Perhaps most importantly, the SRS uranium recovery restart will produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) needed for advanced reactors, DOE said in the release. No timeline was provided in the release for restart of uranium recovery.
The current inventory of used nuclear fuel at SRS contains enough highly enriched uranium to create as many as 19 metric tons of HALEU, enough to fuel several proposed small modular reactors.
In July 2025, DOE announced a revised record of decision (ROD) for blending down highly enriched uranium to HALEU at Savannah River
Recovering uranium from used fuel before final disposal also reduces the number of high-level waste canisters needed, advancing Environmental Management’s cleanup mission by reducing long-term risks and cost, DOE said.
H-Canyon, which started operation in the 1950s, is described by a DOE website as the only “production-scale, radiologically-shielded chemical separations facility in the United States.”
The restart will support President Donald Trump’s May 2025 executive order on reviving the U.S. industrial base and promoting advanced reactors for national security.
DOE is also soliciting interest from parties interested in building a data center and power generation at the 310-square-mile federal complex.
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we’re maximizing the value of existing assets, supporting national security objectives and advancing our cleanup mission — all while supplying America’s next generation of advanced nuclear reactors,” DOE Environmental Management Assistant Secretary Tim Walsh said in the release.
A Government Accountability Office memo from December 2023 said Environmental Management planned to work with DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy on downblending material for HALEU.