DOE seeks private proposals to recycle used nuclear fuel nationwide

The Energy Department just stopped talking about used nuclear fuel in the abstract and started asking private companies to build something real. On April 22, the Office of Nuclear Energy and the Office of Environmental Management issued two Requests for Application aimed at recycling used fuel in the United States, with one track seeking designs for fuel recycling, processing and fuel-fabrication facilities and the other seeking a commercial-scale demonstration at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center.

That second proposal is the clearest sign this is meant to be more than another study cycle. DOE said a successful bidder would get a long-term lease for federal property at the Idaho cleanup site and would carry the whole project lifecycle, from financing and design through permitting, fabrication, commissioning, operation, maintenance and eventual decommissioning. If a private firm can make that package pencil out, it would mark a real commercial test for recycling defense-related used fuel, not just a research exercise.

The department is pitching the effort as part of President Trump’s nuclear energy agenda and the broader push to strengthen the domestic nuclear industrial base and energy independence. DOE Assistant Secretary Ted Garrish said used nuclear fuel is an immense untapped energy resource, while Environmental Management Assistant Secretary Tim Walsh said the new effort is meant to fast-track advanced fuel-cycle capabilities needed for responsible management of defense fuel.

DOE’s own recycling page puts the value proposition in blunt terms. After five years in a commercial reactor, less than five percent of the fuel’s potential energy has been extracted. The department says effective recycling could reduce the need for mined natural uranium, cut the volume of high-level waste that must be dispositioned, and support a more cost-effective circular economy for advanced reactors that need reliable fuel supply.

The April 22 move builds on a February 5 award round in which the Office of Nuclear Energy handed out more than $19 million to five U.S. companies to research and develop recycling technologies: Alpha Nur, Curio Solutions, Flibe Energy, Oklo and SHINE Technologies. Those projects run for up to three years and require at least 20 percent cost share, a sign DOE is already trying to pull private capital into the field before these new applications even land.

The Idaho site has been positioned for this for months. DOE designated Idaho National Laboratory as its Center for Used Fuel Research on January 14, 2026, making INL the department’s lead institution for used-fuel management R&D and demonstration. The site itself dates to 1952, when it opened as the National Reactor Testing Station with a mission that included civilian and defense reactor testing and spent fuel management. Even now, Idaho crews are preparing to receive spent fuel from Penn State University for research work.

The policy swing is striking because the United States effectively deferred commercial spent-fuel reprocessing after Jimmy Carter’s April 7, 1977 decision to do so indefinitely. DOE’s new RFAs, with initial applications due June 19, 2026, are the first serious federal invitation in decades for industry to prove that recycling can move from promise to plant.