Uranium 2.0: LIS Technologies and the Next Energy Revolution
Written by Will Jones
In the past, many people associated nuclear energy with large-scale disasters. However, as safety standards have improved and the demand for energy has increased, nuclear power is once again having a moment. Scalability has historically been a concern with nuclear, but LIS Technologies has a plan to power the impending energy revolution.
LIS Technologies is a company focused on enriching uranium using lasers. Uranium is a necessary component of fuel for nuclear reactors, but in its natural state, it has a low concentration of the specific isotope U-235. Uranium enrichment involves increasing the concentration of U-235 so the uranium is usable as fuel.
At the center of the company’s operations is Condensation Repression Isotope Selective Laser Activation (CRISLA), a uranium-enrichment technique pioneered by Jeff Eerkens in the 1970s. Eerkens is widely considered the “Father of Laser Enrichment.” He co-founded LIS Technologies with fellow laser scientist Christo Liebenberg and capital markets specialist and entrepreneur Jay Yu.
“Lasers have always been seen as the holy grail of enrichment technologies. Lasers can be selectively tuned; it’s more elegant and more precise,” says Liebenberg, President of LIS Technologies. “And it’s much more cost effective, with a much smaller footprint than your typical centrifuge enrichment.”Laser enrichment as a concept isn’t new. However, despite its cost-effectiveness and overall efficiency, it hasn’t seen widespread implementation because no one has been able to successfully scale it thus far. As the United States looks to ramp up domestic production of nuclear energy, a scalable (and safe) uranium-enrichment technique is essential.
Eerkens developed and demonstrated CRISLA throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The technology was beginning to take off when the U.S. abandoned its domestic nuclear industry in favor of cheaper Russian imports.
Eerkens and Liebenberg have brought CRISLA back to life, reshaped it, and ultimately made it more efficient. Liebenberg says that the CRISLA process is finally scalable, thanks to the development of a new generation of laser technologies.
“Laser enrichment has been around for 50 years, and no one has been able to successfully scale it, to take it to commercialization,” he explains. “It's been tried by more than 26 different countries, and no one has been able to.”“Our current type of lasers is very different from what we have been using in the past,” Liebenberg continues. “I've given up on the prior art. We're going to use this new type of laser that's much more scalable. We can now scale the entire process.”
Although the technology is there, it will take some time for LIS Technologies to demonstrate and scale it. Like others in the nuclear sector, Liebenberg is acutely aware of the pressure his company is under. Demand for power is surging, and it will be challenging to keep up.
“We've got about 94 nuclear reactors producing 100 gigawatts, so roughly one gigawatt per nuclear reactor per year. That's what we have currently,” Liebenberg explains. “The projection is that by 2050, we need three to four times that amount of power, so we need 300-400 gigawatts by 2050. Between now and the next 25 years, we need 200-300 gigawatts of extra power, which means roughly 200-300 additional nuclear reactors. That's about one reactor every 90 days.”
He continues, explaining, “The whole nuclear industry and the supply chain have to ramp up hugely to be able to get to that by 2050. We will need not only light water reactors (LWRs), but probably thousands of small modular reactors (SMRs) and micro modular reactors (MMRs) in the overall nuclear energy mix.”
If all goes as planned, LIS Technologies just might lead the country into a new era of clean, safe, and sustainable energy.
“There's a huge resurrection, a huge resurgence of nuclear power,” Liebenberg reflects. “We are in the middle of a second nuclear age. It can be done!”
