BLSK Energy has emerged from stealth mode following the signing of an agreement with Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) under which BLSK Energy will lead the commercialisation of pyroprocessing to produce fuel for advanced fast nuclear reactors by recycling the used fuel from existing NPPs.
The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) established between BLSK and ANL provides BLSK with exclusive access to the intellectual property behind pyroprocessing as well as access to ANL’s established technical team of nuclear reprocessing scientists, engineers and laboratory facilities.
In addition, the CRADA grants BLSK exclusive access to a mature reprocessing facility design specification developed over years of extensive work between ANL and Merrick & Company.
ANL’s support under the CRADA will be led by Dr Yoon Il Chang, Senior Nuclear Project Director and ANL Distinguished Fellow, who is recognised as the father of pyroprocessing technology in the US. Dr Chang detailed the potential for the combination of pyroprocessing and integral fast reactors to provide abundant clean energy in his book, Plentiful Energy, co-authored with his late colleague, Dr Charles Till.
Formed in early 2025, BLSK Energy’s founders have used their experience and relationships in nuclear power and finance to establish significant momentum aimed at placing a pilot recycling facility that will produce fuel for advanced, fast reactors into operation in 2034.
“The path ahead is ambitious but achievable,” said Bruce Landrey, Managing Director & Co-Founder. “It also is absolutely necessary to address both the past and the future of the use of nuclear energy as a source of clean, safe electricity for our communities.”
The US has accumulated an estimated 95,000 tonnes of used nuclear fuel at more than 75 sites. Plans for permanent disposal have been stalled for decades. Meanwhile, both the availability and the cost of the fuel for advanced reactors are becoming bottlenecks in their development. “BLSK has the rare opportunity to address the two critical issues facing nuclear power; answering the question, ‘what about the waste?’ while delivering a reliable cost-effective supply of fuel for advanced reactors,” said Landrey.
BLSK has formed an advisory board specifically designed to streamline federal regulatory approvals and secure capital. Dr Fred Buckman, Sr. (Advisory Board Chair) is an MIT PhD, former utility CEO, and Chief Nuclear Officer (CNO). He has served on the boards of nearly 20 energy companies and acts as an advisor to heavy private equity.
Marilyn Kray, a former executive at Constellation, previously led the NuStart consortium, which spearheaded the national industry push for licensing next-generation reactor frameworks under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). John O’Connor, CEO of JH Whitney Investment Management and former Chairman of JP Morgan Alternative Asset Management, brings institutional investment oversight and national security insights to the project. Tom Marcille, a veteran nuclear engineer and senior executive has extensive experience in small modular reactor (SMR) development and fast-reactor systems.
Pyrochemical processing (pyroprocessing) is a high-temperature, electrochemical method used to recycle used nuclear fuel. In the US, it was pioneered primarily by ANL in the 1980s. Unlike standard aqueous (water-based) reprocessing technologies, pyroprocessing relies on molten salts and electric currents to extract usable material from nuclear waste. Pyroprocessing was fundamentally developed as part of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) programme at ANL between 1984 and 1994.
The goal of the IFR project was to build a self-sufficient nuclear loop. A fast reactor would generate electricity, and an attached, compact pyroprocessing cell would immediately recycle the used metallic fuel on-site to keep the reactor running indefinitely. The programme was abruptly cancelled by federal policy shifts in 1994. However, ANL continued decades of laboratory-scale refinement, creating the mature intellectual property that BLSK Energy has now licensed for commercial deployment.
Used fuel rods from traditional light-water reactors are mechanically stripped of their metal cladding and chopped into tiny pieces. Traditional commercial used fuel is in oxide form. An initial electrochemical step strips away the oxygen molecules, converting the fuel into a porous metal. The metal fuel is then placed into an electrorefiner containing a molten mixture of lithium and potassium chloride salt heated to 500°C. An electric current is passed through the bath. The uranium, plutonium, and minor actinides dissolve into the salt and are pulled toward a cathode electrode, where they plate out as metallic solids.
The collected metals are removed and heated in a vacuum to distill away and recycle any clinging salt residues. The purified mixture of uranium and transuranics is melted and recast via injection casting into fresh, high-density fuel pins ready for advanced fast reactors. Waste products (fission products like caesium and strontium) stay dissolved in the salt. The salt is occasionally cleaned, and these elements are bound into highly stable ceramic or glass logs for permanent storage
Some 96% of a used nuclear fuel rod consists of unburned uranium and actinides. Pyroprocessing extracts this mass, leaving behind just 4% of actual fission product waste. This remaining waste decays down to natural background radiation levels in hundreds of years rather than hundreds of thousands of years.
Next-generation fast reactors require fuel blends with higher concentrations of fissile material. Pyroprocessing creates a reliable, closed-loop domestic supply of this fuel without requiring the continuous mining or enrichment of raw uranium ore.
While the United States abruptly halted its IFR programm and associated pyroprocessing scaling in 1994, Russia’s Reseaerch Institute of Atomic Reactors (NIIAR) in Dimitrovgrad had already perfected and maintained its own operational pyroprocessing and dry fuel manufacturing track. Directly following the collapse of the Soviet Union, NIIAR formally launched the DOVITA (Dry technologies for minor actinides fuel reprocessing) programme in 1992.
The aim was to demonstrate a closed fuel cycle specifically engineered to burn minor actinides (neptunium, americium, curium) using a combination of pyro-electrochemical separation and fast research reactors. NIIAR utilised its operational BOR-60 fast research reactor as the irradiation testing bed for the fuel recycled via their pyro-facilities.
A primary challenge of pyroprocessing is handling the highly radioactive, unpurified mixture of plutonium and actinides extracted from the molten salt. Instead of traditional, complex pellet-pressing methods, which require hands-on maintenance that intense radiation makes impossible, NIIAR mastered vibropacking. Pyro-processed oxide granules are poured directly into a fuel pin tube. The tube is vibrated at high frequencies to tightly settle the granulated fuel to a uniform, high density. The automated machinery operates entirely behind heavy shielding via remote control, making it a viable method for handling “hot” recycled fuel on an industrial scale.
While ANL focused on pyroprocessing metallic fuels for the IFR, NIIAR optimised the technology for mixed oxide and nitride fast-reactor fuels. This specialisation gave Russia a distinct, decades-long head start in deploying commercial-scale fast reactor loops. Because NIIAR successfully sustained these test loops through the 1990s and 2000s, Russia now leads the global market in closed fast-reactor loops. Russia’s commercial BN-800 fast reactor transitioned to a core loaded almost entirely with vibropacked mox fuel produced through dry recycling technologies.
NIIAR is finalising construction on the MBIR (Multi-Purpose Fast Research Reactor) in Dimitrovgrad to replace the ageing BOR-60. MBIR will serve as the world’s most advanced facility for testing closed-loop dry pyro-technologies moving forward. This historical divergence is why BLSK Energy is partnering with ANL to fast-track and commercialise pyroprocessing to try to break Russia’s current monopoly on operational, closed-loop fast reactor fuel cycles.
