To most people it must appear that the nuclear industry is primarily driven by reactors, and that the future nuclear energy landscape will ultimately be shaped by the ongoing competition unfolding between reactor technologies today. This seems to be the understanding behind much of the investor interest we see in the sector at the moment, with companies such as Oklo enjoying sky-high valuations, despite not currently generating any sales revenue.
More fundamental than reactor technology, however, it is developments in the nuclear fuel cycle that will arguably determine which advanced reactor designs ever see the light of day and, if so, by when. This is perhaps most evident in the scramble for HALEU and TRISO, which many of the advanced designs require, but it extends far beyond this.
Known to comparatively few, there is competition in the fuel cycle as well, with the two ends – the front end and the back end – essentially vying for dominance. Two parts stand out, in particular, as rivals, with evolutions in one influencing the demand for the other. These rivals are enrichment and reprocessing.
Enrichment and reprocessing facilities occupy similar niches in the front and back end respectively. Both are considered proliferation sensitive and therefore ‘accepted’ by the powers-that-be to operate in only a limited number of countries. Both are long-lived, capital-intensive industrial assets with high production capability – meaning that even one facility can potentially supply a significant fraction of global demand. This leads naturally to heavily centralised production and fuel security considerations.
Furthermore, both introduce much needed flexibility into the fuel cycle and can help to prevent runaway movements in the price of fuel. In the case of enrichment there is the ability to ‘underfeed’ and ‘overfeed’ fresh uranium input, and the possibility to re-enrich depleted uranium tails. Reprocessing, on the other hand, unlocks the potential to recover un-fissioned uranium and plutonium, and to recycle this into MOX or other fuel types. It also allows for the co-recovery of valuable exotic radioisotopes that may find uses in industry or medicine.
Economically these facilities compete, so that if reprocessing and plutonium-based fuels were to become more widely established, then the demand for uranium enrichment would, all things being equal, reduce. This reduction could become very significant in a world dominated by fast reactors – the so-called plutonium economy. In this world, reprocessing facilities would in fact become the single most important part of the nuclear fuel cycle, capturing most of its value.
At the moment, enrichment has the upper hand in this tussle, as basically all countries need it for their reactors or largely choose to use it (for the PHWRs out there). Ever since the last gaseous diffusion enrichment plant was shut down and centrifuges took over this market segment, enrichment has arguably become cost-effective and highly reliable.
For reprocessing it is a different story. Not many countries choose to reprocess their used nuclear fuel today and instead opt for the once through ‘open’ nuclear fuel cycle. The reprocessors in-chief are of course Russia and France, home to the only commercial-scale reprocessing centres to offer services internationally. Then there is Japan, which eventually intends to restart its own reprocessing facility, but in the meantime uses the capacity of others. The UK was previously host to a reprocessing facility, but this ceased operations in 2022. China and India currently maintain small domestic demonstration programmes.
As for customers – those without any intention to reprocess but which use international providers – at the moment there is the Netherlands… and that seems to be it. A few decades ago, many more countries used reprocessing services including Belgium, Germany, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, but these all underwent policy shifts to interim storage and direct disposal.
There are many reasons for this, not least of which being anti-nuclear politics in these countries, which saw them flirt with, or even complete nuclear phase outs. A country that intends to end nuclear energy production has no need to recycle fuel.
Another significant factor has surely been the persistently low and historically stable uranium price. While there have certainly been spikes in the uranium market, prices have typically returned towards a long-term minimum within a couple of years. The length of time it would take to change the national fuel cycle policy would probably take longer than the fuel price movement.
It is a fact that for conventional reactors reprocessing adds substantial near-term cost to nuclear fuel, with any savings (if any) only realised nearer the point of disposal. This means that countries prioritising the affordability of nuclear energy over (theoretical) long-term security are likely to eschew it. Energy market deregulation has likely also contributed to the trend away from reprocessing.
But if you were to take part in an international nuclear waste conference today you will quickly learn that reprocessing is very much back in vogue. Most notably, it has reappeared on the US political agenda. The country which for many years frowned upon the practise internationally and which banned or otherwise refused to build its own national facility is now back on the reprocessing bandwagon.
Several of Trump’s executive orders explicitly support the development of US reprocessing capacity and specifically via a commercial approach. Companies such as Oklo, Curio, and SHINE are pushing to make this a reality. These are not pursuing the established PUREX process, but rather ‘advanced’ proprietary alternatives that have been either developed in-house or spun out of US national laboratories.
Will reprocessing make the greatest comeback ever and eventually dominate the global nuclear fuel cycle? We will have to wait and see. Despite the current advanced nuclear hype there are reasons to be sceptical, as this would defy the current global trend. Certain previous efforts to establish these facilities have encountered significant technical and economic hurdles, delayed by decades and costing billions more than expected.
And, while receiving less attention, there are exciting developments taking place in enrichment too. Most exciting of course is the progress being made with laser enrichment, with recent news of GLE achieving TRL6 and initiating licensing at its Paducah facility. Laser enrichment offers the potential of yet another step change in the efficiency of a process that has levelled-up once already.
Centrifuges also continue to see design improvement. While it doesn’t get much love, the humble centrifuge is a remarkable contraption that has done more to improve the efficiency and sustainability of nuclear energy than most people realise.
Put in simple terms, there is nothing inevitable about a closed fuel cycle, plutonium economy future. While progress in recycling is exciting and bears watching, it should be compared alongside progress in enrichment and the front-end of the fuel cycle. This does not even touch upon uranium mining, where there is also intriguing potential for step-change improvements – for example through recovery from seawater.
Complicating this narrative of competition between enrichment and reprocessing is that two of the major international nuclear fuel cycle companies own and operate both types of facilities. Orano and Rosatom probably do not perceive competition here. But on the enrichment side there are also some ‘pure plays’ – including URENCO, Centrus and GLE. These companies must stare at the reprocessors warily, secure for now but wondering what the future will bring. There is a strategic reason why Cameco, a pure play uranium miner is co-owner of a start-up laser enrichment undertaking
While generally collegial, the nuclear industry competes with itself as surely as it does with other energy technologies. The competition between the front end and the back end of the fuel cycle, and especially between enrichment and reprocessing is unknown to most industry outsiders but is what very well may end up determining the shape of the future nuclear energy landscape.
