{
  "id": "gle-paducah",
  "slug": "gle-paducah",
  "name": "Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility",
  "stage": "enrichment",
  "company_id": "gle",
  "operator_name": null,
  "use_class": "civilian",
  "safeguards": "offered",
  "capacity_range": null,
  "product_line": null,
  "waste_class": null,
  "country_iso3": "USA",
  "lat": 37.1,
  "lon": -88.8,
  "capacity_value": 6000,
  "capacity_unit": "tSWU/yr",
  "capacity_year": 2026,
  "capacity_note": "stated maximum for the proposed plant; nothing is enriched there yet",
  "output_value": null,
  "output_unit": null,
  "output_tu": null,
  "output_year": null,
  "status": "planned",
  "commissioned": null,
  "notes": "The only enrichment project anywhere using laser separation rather than centrifuges, a technology that has been fifteen years from commercial for about fifty years. Its purpose inverts the usual one: rather than enriching natural uranium, it would re-enrich the Department of Energy's depleted uranium tails back to natural grade, about 100,000 tonnes of it over thirty years. That makes it the only serious proposal anywhere to treat the depleted uranium stockpile as a resource rather than a liability. Global Laser Enrichment has also applied to enrich to 8% U-235, which would put it in HALEU territory. Demonstration work at the Wilmington test loop finished in October 2025.\n",
  "source_name": "World Nuclear Association, US Nuclear Fuel Cycle",
  "source_url": "https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/usa-nuclear-fuel-cycle",
  "source_ref": null,
  "company_name": "Global Laser Enrichment",
  "company_slug": "gle",
  "url": "https://nuclearchain.net/facilities/gle-paducah/",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0",
  "attribution": "NuclearChain (nuclearchain.net)"
}