Spent Nuclear Fuel Could Be America's Answer to Russia's Uranium Grip
- BLSK Energy has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Argonne National Laboratory to commercialize pyroprocessing, a high-temperature method capable of extracting reusable fuel from nuclear waste.
- The U.S. holds approximately 95,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel -- a costly liability that pyroprocessing could turn into a low-cost, carbon-free energy source for advanced fast reactors.
- BLSK aims to bring a pilot plant online by 2034 as the Trump administration pushes to reduce American dependence on Russian-controlled uranium supply chains.
Nuclear fuel is becoming a geopolitical battleground as the world increasingly turns to nuclear energy to contend with skyrocketing energy demand projections. The combination of an oil-based energy crisis emanating out of the Strait of Hormuz, the enormous and ballooning energy needs of artificial intelligence, and the urgent imperative of decarbonization is garnering a renewed interest in nuclear energy as a carbon-free, efficient, and round-the-clock power source.
Moreover, nuclear energy can be produced pretty much anywhere, making it a strategic option for energy independence and autonomy. But the production of nuclear fuel is tied up in a small number of supply chains, many of which are controlled by Russia. And global prices for uranium are rising quickly thanks to increased international demand. The World Nuclear Association projects that global uranium demand will increase 28 percent by 2030 and nearly double by 2040, causing increased competition for nuclear fuel in coming years. Homeshoring and nearshoring nuclear fuel supply chains has therefore become a paramount energy security interest for many nuclear-capable countries.
As the West regains an interest in nuclear energy, however, it may be too late for Europe and the United States to get a foothold in key uranium markets. "Russian and Chinese players have been very keen to secure access to resources in central Asia and Africa, creating a very aggressive competitive environment," Benjamin Godwin at Prism Strategic Intelligence told the Financial Times last year.
The United States is taking several simultaneous approaches to solving this issue, as the Trump administration aims to reestablish the U.S. as the global leader in nuclear energy. The country sits atop massive natural uranium deposits, and could one day become a major producer of nuclear fuel. However, building up those supply chains will take a lot of time, and increased nuclear fuel demand won’t wait. In the interim, there is another major source of uranium supplies that is already in the country’s possession: spent nuclear fuel.
The current administration has invested aggressively into research for recovering usable uranium from discarded nuclear fuel, kept in temporary storage facilities across the nation while they await the development of permanent nuclear waste sites. “Used nuclear fuel is an incredible untapped resource in the United States,” Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Ted Garrish was recently quoted by World Nuclear News. “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.”
It seems that that investment is already paying off. This month, New York-based nuclear startup BLSK Energy announced a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Illinois to commercialize a cutting-edge nuclear fuel recovery method based on pyroprocessing technology.
“Pyroprocessing (or pyrochemical processing) is a high-temperature metallurgical process that could enable the reuse of nuclear fuel,” explained Interesting Engineering in a recent report. “When used with fast reactors, it could extract up to 100 times more energy from uranium.”
BLSK Energy aims to bring a pilot plant online by 2034 that would be capable of extracting nuclear material suitable for advanced fast reactors from nuclear waste. “The path ahead is ambitious but achievable,” said BLSK Energy managing director and co-founder Bruce Landrey.
If successful, the technology has enormous potential to turn a major liability into an incredible asset. The United States has accumulated approximately 95,000 tonnes (104,000 tons) of spent nuclear fuel. That fuel is radioactive and poses a major challenge for storage and safe disposal, all of which comes at a serious cost to taxpayers. Recycling that fuel for an inexpensive and climate-friendly energy source is therefore a major win-win.
By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com
Britain’s Nuclear Renaissance Faces Mounting Cost Pressures
- Sizewell C and Hinkley Point C are expected to play a major role in expanding Britain’s nuclear generation capacity and reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
- Both projects have faced concerns over delays and rising costs, with Hinkley Point C’s estimated price nearly doubling from its original forecast.
- The U.K. aims to increase nuclear capacity to 24 GW by 2050, supported by large-scale reactors and emerging small modular reactor technologies.
The United Kingdom is focused on diversifying its energy mix away from fossil fuels to boost energy security and support decarbonisation aims. This includes expanding its nuclear power capacity with the development of two large-scale nuclear plants - Sizewell C and Hinkley Point C, as well as developing small modular reactors (SMR). However, its nuclear ambitions have not quite gone to plan, following years of delays and rising construction costs.
Sizewell C in Suffolk, eastern England, received its planning approval in 2022, was greenlit in 2025, and is expected to be operational by around the late 2030s. Investment for the development comes from the government, EDF Energy, Centrica, La Caisse, and Amber Infrastructure Limited. The project is expected to create 17,000 jobs during peak construction, including 7,900 in Suffolk. Once operational, the nuclear plant will produce up to 3.2 GW of clean electricity to power up to 6 million homes.
The government expects the plant to cost around £38 million to develop and says it could provide around £2 billion a year in savings from the electricity system, compared to using other low-carbon technologies. However, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the public accounts committee, which oversees the work of the National Audit Office (NAO), warned that “Sizewell C is a project of exceptional scale, complexity and significance for taxpayers… Experience from comparable nuclear projects in the UK and overseas highlights their vulnerability to delays and cost overruns.”
To date, the French nuclear firm EDF has invested £1.1 billion for a 12.5 percent stake in the project, while the U.K. government has invested £14.2 billion as the majority stakeholder. The NAO fears that if not properly managed, construction could run significantly over budget, as seen with other nuclear developments in recent years. This would make the break-even time much longer for consumers footing the construction costs through their taxes.
The NAO has, therefore, urged the government to mitigate the risk by using “close monitoring, greater transparency to parliament, and by securing value for money from the significant public and private investment”.
Lessons for building Sizewell C come from the construction of EDF’s Hinkley Point C plant, the first nuclear plant to be developed in the U.K. in over a decade. Hinkley Point C was approved by the U.K. government in 2013 and was greenlit in 2016. It is expected to begin operations in 2030, a year later than originally planned.
The project has faced several delays and price increases, the most recent of which was announced by EDF in February, adding a projected £2.16 billion. The plant is now expected to cost around £35 billion in total, almost double the original £18 billion 2016 estimate. EDF’s CEO, Bernard Fontana, said the new forecasts were “more realistic” and said that the 2030 launch of operations was “within a range that has not changed” since 2024, when it said operations would start between 2029 and 2031.
Once operational, Hinkley Point C is expected to provide around 7 percent of Britain’s electricity demand. While EDF’s two U.K. nuclear projects could help diversify the country’s energy mix and reduce reliance on fossil fuels, critics worry that the development of the two plants will face further delays and come in significantly over budget. EDF’s only other nuclear project using the same reactor type, at Flamanville in France, became fully operational in December after a delay of over 12 years; meanwhile, costs soared from an initial estimate of £2.85 billion to over £11.4 billion.
In 2025, the U.K. was deemed the “most expensive place in the world” to build nuclear power plants in a government review. This was largely owing to “overly complex” bureaucracy around the sector. Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce said that “radical reset” of the rules around nuclear power could save Britain “tens of billions” in costs and reverse the industry’s “decline” in recent years. This suggests that the government must work to streamline bureaucratic processes without compromising safety and consider other cost-cutting options to avoid cost increases in nuclear development.
At the time, the Taskforce chair, John Fingleton, stated, “Our solutions are radical, but necessary. By simplifying regulation, we can maintain or enhance safety standards while finally delivering nuclear capacity safely, quickly, and affordably.”
In 2024, the U.K. government announced a target to increase the country’s nuclear power capacity fourfold, to 24 GW by 2050. This will be achieved through the development of Sizewell C and Hinkley Point C, as well as through the deployment of innovative small-scale nuclear technologies. This is an ambitious target, but through the development of a wide range of nuclear technologies, it could be achievable.
The U.K. government has already published an Advanced Nuclear Framework for the deployment of innovative nuclear projects. Now, it must ensure that its regulatory frameworks and energy policies align with its nuclear power targets and help facilitate nuclear energy development.
By Felicity Bradstock for Oilprice.com
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