Lightbridge Corporation has entered into landmark agreements with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), to support the development of Lightbridge Fuel™. The framework agreements use an innovative structure and consist of an umbrella Strategic Partnership Project Agreement (SPP) and an umbrella Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), each with Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (BEA), DOE's operating contractor for INL, with an initial duration of seven years. It is anticipated that the initial phase of work under the two agreements will culminate in irradiation testing in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) of fuel samples using enriched uranium supplied by DOE.

The initial phase of work aims to generate irradiation performance data for Lightbridge's delta-phase uranium-zirconium alloy relating to various thermophysical properties. The data will support fuel performance modeling and regulatory licensing efforts for the commercial deployment of Lightbridge Fuel. It is anticipated that subsequent phases of work under the two umbrella agreements will include post-irradiation examination of the irradiated fuel samples, loop radiation testing in the ATR, and post-irradiation examination of one or more uranium-zirconium fuel rodlets, as well as transient experiments in the Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) at INL.