Predictions: powering nuclear energy with spent fuel

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Why throw away anything that can be reused? That principle has created the $500bn-revenue global recycling industry. But climate and energy security fears mean it will become a resurgent theme in less likely industries — including nuclear power.

A number of industrial groups and start-ups, including UK-based Newcleo and Denmark’s Copenhagen Atomics, are working on reactor designs that can use recycled nuclear fuel.

More than 90 per cent of the energy potential of nuclear fuel remains, even after it has been used in a reactor for five years, according to the US Office of Nuclear Energy. Reusing it would partially solve the problem of what to do with sizeable stockpiles. It would also lessen dependence on uranium imports from Russia ally Kazakhstan.

Recycled fuel is nothing new. About a tenth of France’s nuclear electricity is generated using MOX, made from depleted uranium mixed with plutonium recovered from used reactor fuel. More expensive recycled fuel can only generally be used once in conventional light-water reactors.

It is better deployed in technologies such as fast reactors. Many countries including the UK pursued this from the 1950s onwards. It proved uneconomic, especially against power plants using fuels such as gas.

Groups such as Newcleo, backed by Italy’s Agnelli family, must get its latest fast reactor designs to generate electricity at competitive prices.

Many new reactor developers target a levelised cost of energy between $60-$75 per megawatt hour. That beats the UK’s first large nuclear plant in a generation, Hinkley Point C, guaranteed a price of £92.50/MWh in 2012 money. 

Nuclear power fans need patience. Indeed, nuclear programmes are often state-backed given the high capital costs and construction risks. Wealthy philanthropists such as Bill Gates are often the driving force behind new designs, mostly unproven.

Reusing spent nuclear fuel makes sense in terms of sustainability. But for the near term this should remain a niche area.