100 tons. That is how much of the stuff we made back during the Cold War. All those powerful atomic bombs had to be fueled somehow. Plutonium did the trick.
Now the bombs are gone, but the radioactive waste remains.
Storing high-security nuclear material for decades gets expensive. It gets tedious. The Department of Energy (DOE) just announced Tuesday it wants startups to help clear some of this backlog. Five specific companies.
Who got the nod
Oklo, Standard Nuclear, Shine Tech, Flibe Energy, Exodys. They are negotiating with the government.
The DOE previously earmarked 34 tons of that stockpile for disposal via this method. Think of it as a massive experiment. Or maybe a necessity.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright sat on Oklo’s board. He quit when he took the job. Claimed he sold his shares too. Sam Altman? He was the board chair after the SPAC merger. Resigned that spot last year.
Fuel of the future
Plutonium doesn’t exactly grow on trees. You get it by bombarding uranium with neutrons. A nasty byproduct of weapon production.
Here is the catch. Plutonium-239 has a 24,00-year half life.
We cannot wait for it to decay. It’s going to be here long after we’re dead. So we burn it.
Oklo’s reactor can run on standard uranium. But it also eats plutonium. Their first reactors might run entirely on government scrap. Exodys is mixing things up with MOX fuel—blending uranium with that same old bomb residue. Flibe wants to use it too along with other fission waste products.
Complications arise
MOX fuel gets made in France right now. The US tried building a plant in South Carolina once. It went sideways. Blasted past the budget. Missed the deadlines.
Trump canceled it. The first time he was in power anyway.
Now Oklo’s UK partner Newcleo says they want to build a facility nearby. Huh.
Is anyone actually excited?
Not everyone sees this as a brilliant plan.
“Countries have tried this before… it’s really just a liability.”
Scott Roecker at the Nuclear Threat Initiative said that. The plutonium comes from weapons. Security risks are massive. Maybe it’s better just to bury it permanently?
Who knows.
For these startups, the party is over for now. It’s time to negotiate security protocols. Then they figure out how to move highly radioactive isotopes across state lines safely.
Talk about a logistical headache.
