U.S. Industry Opportunities for Uranium Production Technology Development

The Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Office of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Supply Chain (NE-4), conducts Research and Development (R&D) focused on technological advances for the front and back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. One area of research includes Uranium Mining, Conversion, and Transportation (UMCAT) R&D activities. The goal of this program is to fund R&D for technological advances that benefit the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle and enable competitive domestic uranium production and supply chain stability. The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to fund projects that enable cost competitive domestic uranium production and conserve water. Specifically, this FOA seeks proposals for R&D projects focused on uranium mining water treatment technologies that reduce the volume of water usage associated with and/or improve extraction efficiency and resource utilization for uranium production. This may include subsurface in situ treatment as well as surface treatment processes for in situ recovery (ISR) and processing facilities, as well as conventional mines and mills. Applicants are invited to provide a proposed project with a project period of up to two years that supports the objective of achieving cost-reducing water treatment technologies, which could be employed rapidly following the successful completion of the FOA. The proposed project should show how the proposed work addresses current gaps in technology. Proposals should demonstrate reduction in water use, reduced costs, and/or improvements to resource utilization and efficiencies in uranium production. Proposals should demonstrate the ability of proposed technologies and improvements to be adopted quickly by United States uranium producers following the completion of the project. The ability for rapid adoption includes the ability of new technologies to meet or exceed all pertinent federal, state, and local environmental regulations governing water treatment and use. The following changes were incorporated with Amendment 000001 (06/10/2021): • Make administrative changes, such as spelling, format, clarifications etc. • Section III.A. "Eligible Applicants" was updated to clarify eligibility. • Section V.A.2. "Merit Review Criteria" was updated to include the relative weight for each criterion.