The world is running out of easy answers to meet the skyrocketing energy demand. Driven by the boom in artificial intelligence data centers, electric vehicles, and household energy needs, the International Energy Agency warned that new energy generation and storage technologies are not coming online fast enough. Policymakers are searching for the next “great breakthrough” in clean energy. But one breakthrough already exists, and it’s proven, domestic, and within reach.
Before we start mining new minerals or betting on physics still under development, we should revisit a technology America mastered decades ago and then abandoned: recycling the nuclear fuel we have already used. This overlooked, commonsense energy solution offers a chance for the United States to reclaim its leadership in the global clean energy race.
Prior to the Carter administration’s 1977 ban on commercial fuel reprocessing, the U.S. was on its way to becoming the world’s leader in recycling spent nuclear fuel. Programs at Energy Department national laboratories demonstrated advanced techniques such as pyroprocessing, which can recover usable uranium and plutonium from spent fuel rods. These efforts did not stop because they failed; they stopped because of policy fears.
Nonproliferation concerns overshadowed technical success, and America stepped back from a field it had pioneered. Meanwhile, other nations, such as France, Russia, Japan, and China, moved forward, refining their methods and turning what we call “waste” into a reusable energy asset. While others perfected the art of recycling atoms, the U.S. perfected the art of burying them.
Half a century later, a new generation of innovators is proving that America can safely and securely bring nuclear recycling back. At the forefront is Oklo, a company designing compact fast reactors powered by fuel reclaimed through an electrochemical process that never separates pure plutonium: the core proliferation concern of the 1970s. It would be a disservice to the U.S. not to take advantage of this opportunity.
Many of America’s advanced reactor technologies can use this recycled metal fuel, transforming what’s currently classified as waste into clean, reliable power. Oklo’s planned $1.68 billion advanced fuel center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, will be the first commercial-scale facility in the U.S. designed for this purpose. This is not a revival of Cold War reprocessing; it’s a digital-age circular economy built around the atom. Oklo’s reactors show promise for a safe energy future, one that addresses the surging electricity costs and demand that desperately need a solution.
The U.S. holds more than 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and large stockpiles of uranium and plutonium from past civilian and defense programs. Those materials sit locked away in steel canisters at reactor sites, treated as a burden rather than a resource. Yet, over 90% of the spent nuclear fuel’s potential energy is still available, enough to drive reactors for centuries. If the key to cheaper, cleaner power lies in resources we have already produced, why keep it off-limits?
Recycling nuclear fuel will also shrink the volume and toxicity of the waste that requires long-term storage, one of the biggest public-perception barriers to nuclear energy. It would reduce America’s reliance on imported uranium and the Russian-dominated supply of high-assay, low-enriched uranium, known as HALEU. And it would deliver 24/7, zero-carbon baseload power that complements wind and solar rather than competes with them.
THE CLIMATE CATASTROPHIZER MODEL MELTDOWN
With advanced reactors, the U.S. could create a closed-loop, self-sustaining fuel cycle. We can create an energy system that does not depend on constant extraction or foreign enrichment. Clean energy independence is not about drilling deeper; it’s about recycling smarter.
For 50 years, we have called it nuclear waste. But in truth, it’s a nuclear opportunity, a resource waiting for leaders bold enough to see it that way. The IEA is right: Meeting the world’s growing energy demand will require breakthroughs. Yet the next one does not depend on new physics, only the courage to reclaim what we once knew. America’s clean energy future is not buried in lithium mines or offshore wind farms. It’s sitting safely in steel canisters at more than 70 sites in 35 states, ready to power the next generation of innovation. Recycling turns a liability into an asset by reducing long-term disposal costs, extending our fuel reserves, and fueling America’s energy future.
Guy Caruso is a former administrator for the Energy Information Administration.