‘Let’s Not Waste Nuclear Waste,’ Some Nations Say
- Rick Laezman
- Aug 14
- 7 min read
How Reprocessing Spent Fuel Can Unlock More Clean Energy, Cut Radioactive Waste, and Protect Natural Lands
Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel can wring carbon-free electricity from uranium and its fissile byproducts —and drastically shrink the volume and toxicity of radioactive waste, and sharply reduce the need for uranium mining that scars natural landscapes.
This isn’t futuristic theory—it’s a proven technology now used in France, India, Japan, Russia, and other nations, but not yet in the United States.
Nuclear energy already generates 19% of US electricity without emitting carbon dioxide or soot particles. While uranium fuel is finite, like oil and coal, it produces no greenhouse gases during operation, putting it in the same emissions-free category as wind and solar.
The challenge is that America’s nuclear plants run on what’s called a once-through or open fuel cycle: They burn a small fraction of their fuel, and then the plant operators store the rest indefinitely. More than 90% of the fissile material in “spent” fuel rods could still be used to generate power.
“Recycling waste nuclear fuel could produce “hundreds of years of energy from the uranium that we have already mined” from the earth.
According to the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory, recycling waste nuclear fuel could produce “hundreds of years of energy from the uranium that we have already mined” from the earth.
The DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) compares the current US practice to filling a car with 10 gallons of gas, driving far enough to burn half a gallon, then throwing away the rest—over and over again. Reprocessing changes that equation: It recovers usable uranium and plutonium from spent fuel, turns it into new reactor fuel, and repeats the process multiple times in a closed fuel cycle.
The reason US power plants have been throwing away “spent” nuclear fuel rods is because as uranium-235 fuel atoms split, they produce a variety of radioactive fission byproducts that absorb neutrons and poison the chain reaction, making the fuel less efficient over time. Eventually, the reactor can’t sustain power output without replacing the fuel.
Considering the world’s dueling challenges of eliminating carbon emissions and expanding electricity generation, says Amanda Lines, a PNNL chemist, “perhaps these challenges have the same solution—recycling spent nuclear fuel to make new fuel.”
Recycling Nuclear Waste
Besides multiplying the energy yield from each ton of uranium, reprocessing reduces the total radioactive waste volume by 80% and its long-term radioactivity by 90%. That slashes the time and cost of managing spent fuel, which now must be cooled in pools, encased in heavy concrete casks, and guarded for thousands of years. It also lessens demand for fresh uranium, avoiding the environmental degradation associated with mining and milling operations in countries where significant uranium ore deposits are found, such as Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, Russia, Namibia, and the United States.
The main commercial method in use today is the plutonium-uranium extraction process (PUREX), which produces a blended “mixed-oxide” fuel (MOX). This so-called aqueous method utilizes liquid solutions in several steps to separate reusable uranium and plutonium from spent fuel. Other emerging methods, such as pyroprocessing, use very-high-temperature molten salts and electricity to separate reusable metals without the large liquid waste streams of aqueous techniques.
The benefits are clear, but only two countries currently reprocess at a large scale. France is the leader: Its La Hague facility in Normandy, operated by the Orano Group conglomerate, has reprocessed over 40,000 tons of spent fuel since 1976, supplying roughly 17% of the country’s electricity from recycled material. France’s nuclear fleet provides about 61% of national power, so recycling plays an outsized role. The plant also handles fuel for other nations, returning reprocessed batches to Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy.
Russia, by contrast, reprocesses about 100 metric tons a year at its Mayak facility in the Ural Mountains—just a fraction of its total spent fuel—but has plans to expand. Japan, China, India, and the United Kingdom have also pursued reprocessing programs, with varying degrees of success and continuity.
US Lags in Reprocessing Waste
The United States took a different path. In the early nuclear era, reprocessing was developed under the Manhattan Project to produce plutonium for thermonuclear weapons, and later eyed for extending commercial fuel supplies when uranium seemed scarce. But private-sector reprocessing efforts collapsed under high costs, technical difficulties, and tight regulation. In 1976, President Gerald Ford halted the commercial push, citing nuclear weapons proliferation risks, and subsequent presidents maintained that stance. Proliferation in the context of nuclear energy means the spread to non-nuclear-weapons nations of plutonium, a metal that is recovered and concentrated by the PUREX process.
The policy began to thaw in 2006 with the DOE’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which called for international collaboration on waste recycling. More recently, under the Biden administration, DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) launched programs such as ONWARDS and CURIE (named for radium discoverer Marie Curie) to fund development of proliferation-resistant reprocessing technologies.
New-Generation Reactors to the Rescue
Still, the US has no commercial-scale reprocessing plants, and its current fleet of light-water reactors is not optimized for MOX or other recycled fuels. Retrofitting them would be prohibitively expensive.
The more promising fit is the new generation of “fast” and advanced reactors—such as sodium-cooled fast reactors, very-high-temperature reactors, and molten-salt reactors—which can efficiently run on “spent” fuel and even consume some long-lived waste byproducts in the process.
Fast reactors use “fast neutrons” (not slowed by a moderator like water), which allows them to fission a broader range of isotopes, including plutonium and minor radioactive elements found in spent fuel; recycle fuel in a closed fuel cycle, dramatically reducing the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste; and breed new fuel from uranium-238, extending fuel supplies for centuries.
Fast reactors use “fast neutrons” (not slowed by a moderator like water), which allows them to fission a broader range of isotopes.
Fast reactors, for example, use liquid sodium—instead of water—to cool the reactor core. This enables higher efficiency and the ability to “burn” waste actinides, which are the byproduct elements that poison the fission chain reaction. Since fast reactors burn the plutonium produced by conventional power plants, they make proliferation issues moot.
Very-high-temperature reactors use graphite to moderate reactions and helium gas for cooling, also tolerating the use of recycled fuels. Molten-salt reactors mix nuclear fuel into a hot salt coolant, achieving high burn-up rates and inherent safety advantages. None are yet operating commercially in the United States, though multiple projects are in the pipeline, with the first expected around 2030.
Other countries have been quicker to deploy such designs. According to the World Nuclear Association, advanced Generation III reactors were first introduced in Japan in 1996. Russia’s BN-600 sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor has run since 1980; its successor BN-800 came online in 2016, with a BN-1200 planned for 2027. Generation III facilities, which are far safer and more economical than previous types, rely on automatic physical processes to shut down in emergencies rather than the sometimes-unreliable operator response.
China launched the world’s first Generation IV very-high-temperature reactor at Shidao Bay in 2021.
Generation IV reactors are almost entirely in the design and planning stages right now, though China launched the world’s first Generation IV very-high-temperature reactor at Shidao Bay in 2021.
Both Russia and China are also exploring floating nuclear plants, which have many advantages. They are prefabricated in modules in a factory, rather than on-site, and shipped to the location, which can save time and money compared with traditional reactors. They also can deliver clean power to remote areas where it is impractical and costly to import other fuels. Floating reactors can service populations and industrial operations—like mining—in coastal and isolated locations.
The US reprocessing gap has left it dependent on once-through fuel cycles, long-term waste storage, and fresh uranium mining. Advocates like Ed McGinnis, CEO of the start-up Curio (recipient of a $5 million CURIE grant), argue that it is imperative to close the fuel cycle. “To unlock the full potential of nuclear energy,” McGinnis says, “it is essential that we address the challenges of the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle by recycling the spent nuclear fuel.”
Playing Catch-up
Despite their potential, no advanced nuclear reactors have been deployed commercially in the US.
Many projects are under development, and the federal government has taken steps to support the growth of this technology. In May 2025, President Trump signed an executive order intended to ensure the “rapid deployment” of this technology. However, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, an advocacy group for the commercial nuclear industry, the first advanced nuclear plants in North America are not expected to begin operations before 2030.
For the United States, adopting reprocessing at scale could mean:
more energy from uranium already mined—potentially hundreds of years’ worth
less waste to guard and store for millennia
less land destroyed by new uranium mining
a stronger, cleaner, more secure domestic energy supply.
In summary, nuclear power is regaining momentum as countries around the world confront the urgency of climate change and the limitations of wind and solar alone in meeting stable electricity demand. Recycling nuclear waste is not a silver bullet, but it can make the technology far more resource-efficient, climate-friendly, and environmentally responsible.
With supportive policies, targeted investment, and public acceptance, nuclear fuel reprocessing could transform a costly waste liability into a strategic clean-energy asset—helping to power the transition away from fossil fuels without sacrificing reliability or the landscape.
*Rick Laezman is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California, US. He has a passion for energy efficiency and innovation. He has been covering renewable power and other related subjects for more than 10 years.
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