Oklo selected for US DOE project to enable recycling of used fuel

4 November 2022


Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Deep Isolation, and Case Western Reserve University have been awarded $6.1 million in funding by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to enable the recycling of used nuclear fuel from the current light water reactor fleet into advanced reactor fuel.

Today’s reactors only consume about 5% of the energy content contained in their fuel. Nearly 95% of the energy content remains unused, and Oklo’s technology aims to unlock much of this remaining energy content. The cost-share project will support the commercialisation of Oklo’s clean powerhouses by utilising the energy content in today’s waste and converting it into clean energy.

The project is funded by theAdvanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) under its Converting Used Nuclear Fuel Radioisotopes into Energy (CURIE) programme. The CURIE programme was recently launched to fuel the commercialization of advanced fission technology while reducing waste.

Over the past year, Oklo has been selected by the US Department of Energy (DOE) for four cost-share projects, totalling over $15 million to commercialise advanced reactor fuel from nuclear waste. Oklo’s CURIE project will focus on one of the critical steps for recycling waste from the current fleet, converting used oxide fuel into metal so it can be recycled using the process that Oklo is commercialising.

"Fuel recycling can impact how quickly we decarbonise. Since used fuel is about 95% recyclable, you can transform waste into a viable resource," said Jacob DeWitte, Co-founder and CEO of Oklo. There is enough energy content in today’s used fuel to power the entire country’s power needs for over 100 years without carbon emissions. Additionally, certain long-lived radioactive isotopes get consumed in the power generation process, which reduces and transforms the disposal burden of used fuel.

"Building on our other DOE projects to demonstrate the end-to-end recycling process, the CURIE project will position Oklo to build a first-of-a-kind commercial recycling facility and produce advanced reactor fuel economically and efficiently for our powerhouses," added DeWitte. “The deployment of a commercial-scale fuel recycling facility will contribute to building an energy independent future for the country while securing a fuel supply chain via used fuel recycling.”



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