United States develops technology to repurpose nuclear waste

The United States is developing a new method to transform its massive stockpile of approximately 94,000 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste into valuable resources. Through the REDUCE (Recover Elements – Destroy Undesirables – Create Energy) project, researchers aim to recover reusable uranium and plutonium, which constitute about 90% of the spent fuel.

Beyond fuel, the project targets the extraction of rare radioactive isotopes such as Strontium-90, Rhodium-103, Palladium-105-110, and Americium-241. These isotopes have critical applications in medicine, industry, and space exploration. The potential value of these isotopes alone is estimated at $24 billion, while the underlying uranium and plutonium fuel components are valued in the trillions of dollars.

The REDUCE project is a collaborative effort between SHINE Technologies, Argonne National Laboratory, and Case Western Reserve University. A central component of this initiative is the PaCERS (Packaged Equipment for Chemical Separation) technology, which aims to reduce the time required for nuclear fuel separation from hours to mere seconds, significantly improving upon traditional chemical separation methods.