Projects ‘will end’ Washington’s reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy has awarded over $19m (€16m) to five US companies to research and develop recycling technologies for used nuclear fuel.
The DOE said in a statement that the projects will support president Donald Trump’s nuclear energy agenda by helping to maximise reliable power production, end US reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium and drastically reducing the volume of used fuel stored across the country.
According to data from the Energy Information Administration, Russia supplies roughly 24% to 27% of the enriched uranium – or enrichment services – for US nuclear power plants. After Russia, 12% of enriched uranium comes from France, 8% from the Netherlands, and 7% from the UK. The US relies on foreign sources for 71.7% of its enriched uranium.
The DOE said the companies were selected to help solve the economic and technological challenges associated with nuclear fuel recycling technologies. The companies and their project are:
- Alpha Nur will research and validate a process that will recover highly enriched uranium (HEU) from used nuclear fuel produced by U.S. based research reactors and transform it to a usable high assay low enrichment uranium (HALEU) form for reuse in small modular reactor designs.
- Curio Solutions will develop a process designed to produce uranium hexafluoride gas from used fuel.
- Flibe Energy will study the use of electrochemical methods to process used nuclear fuel.
- Oklo will study heavy element deposition in molten salt to optimise a pyro-processing plant design.
- Shine Technologies will develop a process design that incorporates transport, storage, and disposal together with hydro-processing of used fuel.
The projects will last up to three years and require a minimum 20% cost share from each award recipient.
“Used nuclear fuel is an incredible untapped resource in the United States,” said assistant secretary for nuclear energy Ted Garrish. “The Trump administration is taking a common-sense approach to making sure we’re using our resources in the most efficient ways possible to secure American energy independence and fuel our economic growth.”
Less than 5% of the potential energy in the nation’s nuclear fuel is extracted after five years of operation in a commercial reactor. Recycling used nuclear fuel could increase resource utilization by 95%, reduce waste by 90% and decrease the amount of uranium needed to operate nuclear reactors.
Additional benefits to nuclear fuel recycling include the recovery and extraction of valuable radioisotopes for medical, industrial and defence purposes.
The awards support two recent presidential executive orders by Trump to deploy advanced reactor technologies and to advance recycling technologies.
