Two recently published letters from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) display a painfully large gap in the sense of urgency felt by America's two newest uranium enrichment projects.

On October 29, the NRC published its acceptance of General Matters' new license application for its uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky. In the same week, the NRC also published the long list of failures from Orano's Project IKE enrichment plant planned for Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The American company was begging to go faster and was told to be patient, while the French company was given an open field and decided to drop the ball.

"Best I can do is 18 months"

General Matter submitted their license request for a new uranium enrichment facility at the end of September. The company asked for an accelerated NRC review, which means they were looking for a license decision to be returned to them in 12 months, compared to the standard timeline of 18 months.

The NRC praised "the quality and completeness of the application" and said General Matter's early engagement let staff accept it in "approximately half the timeframe typically allotted for an acceptance review."

Despite the application's quality, the NRC refused to open the fast lane.

Instead of blaming the company, though, the NRC actually blamed their own shortcomings for not committing to the faster timeline…

"Given the anticipated increase in the workload and associated resource constraints, the NRC staff cannot commit at this time to a schedule shorter than the estimated April 2028 completion date,"

It's not a complete loss. The NRC also stated in the letter that if the company "maintains this strong level of engagement, supplies timely and complete information, and NRC resources are available," staff will "consider opportunities to expedite portions of the review."

Translation: We will go as fast as you let us.

General Matter was incubated at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and is run by Scott Nolan, an early SpaceX engineer. The company claims it will use its own proprietary process on DOE land at the old Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, the last fully U.S.-owned enrichment plant until it closed in 2013.