The plant, which will open in the 2030s, is expected to bring 800 new jobs to the state.
A private nuclear recycling facility, the first of its kind in the United States, is being built in Tennessee, with plans to begin operating in the 2030s.
Oklo Inc. announced its plans to design, build, and operate the Tennessee-based plant, which includes an almost $2 billion investment in the state, as well as 800 new jobs for Tennesseans.
“Tennessee seems to be well-situated. They have a lot of nuclear generation currently, and so they have spent fuel rods,” CEO of the American Energy Institute Jason Isaac told National Review. “When you have a large nuclear facility, the traditional kind that we’re used to seeing and have had for decades, that fuel becomes spent fuel rods, and they’re just kept on site and stored. There is plenty of that available and there is still fuel available in those. You can recycle those and extract more of what will become energy and be produced into electricity.”
The plant will harness those spent fuel rods and create a clean, reliable fuel supply. Currently, there is more than 94,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel available to be recycled across the United States, which translates to 1.3 trillion barrels of oil, according to Oklo.
“Fuel is the most important factor in bringing advanced nuclear energy to market,” Jacob DeWitte, Oklo co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “By recycling used fuel at scale, we are turning waste into gigawatts, reducing costs, and establishing a secure U.S. supply chain that will support the deployment of clean, reliable, and affordable power. Tennessee is showing the nation that recycling can be done to support new nuclear development and growth.”
Tennessee is looking forward to its partnership with Oklo and is “well positioned to lead America’s energy independence,” Governor Bill Lee said in a statement.
The plant will recycle spent fuel rods dating back to the Cold War-era. The project will be located in Oak Ridge, Tenn., which also holds the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a research and development center sponsored by the United States Department of Energy.
Experts say that nuclear is a great source of affordable and reliable energy, as well as an opportunity for other advancements.
“There are incredible medical opportunities with medical isotopes being used to treat cancer and generate more of those isotopes,” Isaac said. “I think the economic outlook for nuclear is phenomenal, and hopefully it will lead to more reliable and affordable electric generation in this country, and more base load power, something we are way behind China in generating over the last decade and a half.”
Other countries, like France and Russia, stand out in the nuclear energy field, Isaac explained. But the United Kingdom and Germany, by contrast, have policies that favor disposing plutonium rather than recycling it.
“The last thing that America wants to do is follow Germany and the United Kingdom and the rest of the EU, or the EU in their energy policies. Last year the EU imported more liquified natural gas from Russia than they ever have,” Isaac said. “They continue to find themselves dependent on foreign sources of energy, and they are de-industrializing before our eyes, and that’s the last thing that we want to do.”
The recycling plant is currently in the pre-application engagement process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Isaac expects other states, like Florida, to follow suit.
“They have spent fuel rods sitting on site at a nuclear power plant, and you just have to maintain them. There’s cost involved for the storage,” Isaac said. “If you recycle them, then you’re getting the plutonium out of that fuel, which is ultimately safer. It’s something that we should have been doing now for decades, and we’re finally catching up to other places around the world.”