The federal government is pursuing a controversial path to bolster nuclear fuel supplies by opening advanced talks with five private companies to convert 19.7 metric tons of surplus plutonium into reactor fuel. The initiative aims in part to help meet growing electricity needs tied to data center growth and to support an administration objective to vastly expand U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. But multiple interviewees and officials warn that the plan confronts formidable hurdles - chiefly because plutonium is extraordinarily hazardous and demands intensive safeguards.
Plutonium’s danger is not academic. A roughly grapefruit-sized piece of the element, if diverted to malicious use, could be sufficient to produce an atomic device comparable in destructive power to the weapon used on Nagasaki in World War Two. The radioactive dust of plutonium, which has a half-life of 24,000 years, poses a potent inhalation hazard. "This is weapons-usable plutonium," said Ross Matzkin-Bridger, who previously worked on securing plutonium materials at the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration. "I’m very concerned that there are big pieces of the risk that the taxpayers are going to be tackling."
DOE officials say the materials will require close regulation and oversight. The Office of Nuclear Energy noted that companies in the advanced talks must provide material safety and security plans for stabilizing, packaging, transporting, and storing plutonium. The DOE also expects that most workers at a facility handling such material would need the highest-level security clearances. A DOE spokesperson said, "DOE does not expect to pay for the specialized proliferation, security, and health protections required to process surplus plutonium."
Lawmakers and experts stress that the security burden could translate into large program costs. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, an Illinois Democrat and the only physicist in Congress, said, "my brain goes on high alert" upon hearing about the proposal. He warned that keeping a program robust against terrorism would likely require very high security spending, and urged careful scrutiny of the economic feasibility of the plants being proposed.
The five firms the administration selected to advance talks include a mix of established and emerging nuclear technology companies. Oklo is among them and sees plutonium as a near-term fuel option while domestic supplies of high-assay, low-enriched uranium - HALEU - are being developed. Bonita Chester, an Oklo spokesperson, argued that using plutonium as fuel could avoid another costly government plan to dilute and dispose of the material, a program that the administration halted last year when it unveiled the fuel conversion effort. Chester said Oklo "would invest in transport, the associated fuel fabrication infrastructure, as well as all licensing requirements, including safety, security, and safeguards." She did not provide a cost estimate for those investments.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright previously served on Oklo’s board before joining the administration. According to a DOE spokesperson, Wright was not involved in Oklo’s selection, forfeited unvested company shares, and recused himself from matters specifically involving Oklo.
Other companies in the talks include Exodys Energy, which plans to build a processing facility on federal land, and SHINE Technologies, which points to its experience handling nuclear materials. Carl Perez, chief executive of Exodys, said a facility cannot obtain required U.S. authorizations and licenses "without fully addressing worker protection, overall safety, and material safeguards against recognized standards." Greg Piefer, CEO and founder of SHINE, said the company has extensive processing experience and argued that once plutonium is used to generate energy in a reactor, it is no longer dangerous. "One of the most responsible things we can do with weapons-grade plutonium is to burn it," he said. Standard Nuclear and Flibe Energy, the remaining two companies engaged in advanced talks, did not respond to requests for comment.
The United States has a fraught history with efforts to convert surplus plutonium into reactor fuel. In 2000 the country agreed to develop mixed oxide fuel - MOX - from weapons-grade plutonium for use in civilian reactors. That program was canceled during the previous administration in 2018 after officials concluded it would cost roughly $48 billion more than the $7.6 billion already spent.
Oklo’s approach differs from the abandoned MOX path in that the company plans to use plutonium in so-called fast reactors that it is developing. Oklo contends that fast reactors can use plutonium more efficiently than reactors that had been intended to run on MOX. According to internal Oklo calculations, each metric ton of plutonium burned in a fast reactor could supply nearly 1 million American homes with electricity for a year.
Fast reactors in the United States have previously been confined to research applications and have not been deployed for commercial power generation. Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who served under President Barack Obama, told observers that diluting and disposing of surplus plutonium is generally easier and less costly than processing it into fuel. "My expectation is that you will find the government paying for a hell of a lot of what’s going on here, including all the security you would need around weapons-grade plutonium," Moniz said.
Officials and industry participants alike emphasize that moving from concept to operation will require navigating an array of security, licensing, worker protection, and material safeguards issues. The DOE has asked firms to outline their plans for handling and securing the material, but it has also signaled that it expects firms, rather than taxpayers, to cover the specialized protections necessary to manage proliferation and health risks.
Summary
The administration has initiated advanced talks with five companies to convert 19.7 metric tons of surplus plutonium into reactor fuel to help meet rising power demand associated with data centers and to support a major expansion of U.S. nuclear capacity. The plan faces significant obstacles: plutonium’s extreme hazards, the need for very high security clearances and protections for workers and materials, and the potential for high costs that could make the program impractical. Proponents argue the strategy could serve as an interim fuel source and avoid the costs and risks of dilution-and-disposal efforts, while critics point to past program failures and the expectation of extensive government spending to address security needs.
Key points
- DOE opened advanced talks with five companies to develop 19.7 metric tons of surplus plutonium into reactor fuel; firms must submit material safety and security plans and most workers would need top-level clearances - impacting the nuclear construction, security services, and utilities sectors.
- Oklo and others argue plutonium could bridge fuel shortages while domestic HALEU supplies scale up; Oklo estimates 1 metric ton burned in a fast reactor could power almost 1 million homes for a year - relevant to power generation and data center power supply markets.
- Historical and financial precedents, including the cancellation of the MOX program after large cost overruns, underscore the potential for significant taxpayer exposure and influence procurement and project finance decisions across energy and defense-related contractors.
Risks and uncertainties
- Security and proliferation risk - handling weapons-usable plutonium requires intensive safeguards and could provoke very high security costs; this affects government budgets, security contractors, and the economics of any conversion facility.
- Licensing, worker protection, and regulatory hurdles - facilities will need extensive authorizations and safeguards, which could delay or prevent timely deployment and affect construction schedules and financing for developers and utilities.
- Program economics and government exposure - past program cancellations and estimates by observers that taxpayers may end up funding large portions of security and related costs introduce uncertainty for investors, insurers, and ratepayers.
Tags
plutonium, nuclear, energy, security, reactors