Oklo plans Tennessee plant to recycle nuclear waste

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Nuclear power company Oklo OKLO.N said on Thursday it plans to design, build, and operate a plant in Tennessee to recycle nuclear waste as the first phase of a nuclear fuel center that will cost up to $1.68 billion.

If successful, the fuel plant, which requires Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval, would be the first of its kind in the U.S. It aims to operate by the early 2030s and create more than 800 jobs.

The initial investment, the amount of which Oklo did not detail, will be for the construction of a facility to recycle, or re-process nuclear waste, which the industry calls spent nuclear fuel, into fuel for fast reactors like Oklo’s planned Aurora reactor.

Oklo hopes to get a license from the NRC for the reactor in late 2027.

Oklo plans to work with the federally-owned Tennessee Valley Authority utility, to recycle its nuclear waste and to evaluate power sales from Oklo reactors to TVA.

"By recycling used fuel at scale, we are turning waste into gigawatts, reducing costs, and establishing a secure U.S. supply chain," said Jacob DeWitte, Oklo co-founder and CEO.

Many non-proliferation advocates oppose re-processing, saying its supply chain could be a target for militants seeking to seize materials for use in a crude nuclear bomb.

France and other countries have reprocessed nuclear waste by breaking it down into uranium and plutonium and reusing those to make new reactor fuel.

Former President Gerald Ford halted re-processing in 1976, citing proliferation concerns. Former President Ronald Reagan lifted a moratorium in 1981, but high costs have prevented plants from opening.

DeWitte said plutonium and uranium separated from the waste in Oklo's process would not be pure, but mixed with other ingredients, making it unusable as fissile material.

Oklo said recycling the waste, now held at U.S. nuclear reactor sites, would unlock the energy equivalent to five times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

“The next generation of nuclear technologies are being built and developed right here in our own backyard,” said TVA President and CEO Don Moul.