Shine, Newcleo join up to close nuclear fuel cycle

The MARIE (for Model for the Assessment of Reprocessing and Recycle with Innovative Execution) consortium is led by the independent non-profit EPRI research organisation and funded under the US Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy's (ARPA-E) CURIE programme. It is working to build an optimisation tool the US nuclear industry could use to evaluate and underwrite the first commercial used fuel recycling facilities. 

Shine is targeting a pilot facility capable of processing 100 tonnes of used nuclear fuel per year in the early 2030s - the kind of facility MARIE is designed to help underwrite. "Roughly 90,000 metric tonnes of used nuclear fuel sit in US storage today, and Shine's strategy is to turn that inventory into a strategic energy asset," the company said.

Shine's role covers the security, regulatory, and commercial questions facing a US nuclear recycling industry, drawing on its experience in licensing its Chrysalis medical isotope production facility as well as its experience as a commercial isotope producer to assess the markets for valuable isotopes recoverable from used fuel.

"Recycling effectively makes nuclear fuel a renewable resource, reshaping the next era of clean energy. The companies that figure out how to licence and build the facilities will set the pace for US recycling, and that's the work we're doing in this consortium," the company's founder and CEO Greg Piefer said.

Technical collaboration

In a separate announcement, Shine and Newcleo said they have agreed to collaborate on advancing innovative technologies for the recycling of used nuclear fuel.

They will assess how Shine could supply Newcleo with materials from the used nuclear fuel of traditional reactors to manufacture MOX fuel, and how Shine could recycle spent fuel from Newcleo's reactors. The companies also intend to jointly pursue US federal funding opportunities and explore additional opportunities for collaboration across both the US and European Union, where they say used fuel stockpiles represent a growing strategic priority.

Newcleo is developing advanced modular reactors cooled by liquid lead, and the facilities to produce mixed-oxide - or MOX - fuel to power them. Shine is developing nuclear fuel reprocessing technologies aimed at enabling the efficient and proliferation-resistant extraction of uranium and plutonium from existing used nuclear fuel inventories. The MOX fuel manufacturing capabilities that Newcleo is advancing can convert those materials into new fuel suitable for use in advanced reactor systems, the companies said.

"Closing the fuel cycle will require deep, industry-wide collaboration that brings together expertise from across the nuclear fuel supply chain. Today marks an important step in that direction, combining Shine's recycling capabilities with Newcleo's advanced fuel manufacturing and reactor technologies," Newcleo founder and CEO Stefano Buono said.

"Recycling spent nuclear fuel solves two problems at once. It addresses decades of accumulated waste and removes the fuel supply constraint on expanding the reactor fleet. Working with Newcleo connects our capabilities directly to reactors designed to run on recycled fuel. That closed fuel cycle effectively makes nuclear energy renewable and fundamentally changes its economics," Piefer said.

The companies plan to begin technical scoping this year, with joint federal funding proposals to follow.

Last year, Newcleo signed an agreement with US-based sodium-cooled fast-reactor developer Oklo to develop advanced fuel fabrication and manufacturing infrastructure in the USA. It has begun pre‑application engagement with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to support the future licensing of its first Lead-cooled Fast Reactor and an associated MOX fuel fabrication facility.