After decades of stalemate over what to do with radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, the U.S. Department of Energy is hoping states can be convinced to take in some of that used fuel as part of a broader effort that could include advanced industries, power generation, data centers — and the promise of long-term jobs.
Many states have responded positively against a backdrop of rising demand for electricity and a bipartisan interest in non-fossil firm power. Recycling and reusing nuclear fuel – as France has done for years – is seen by many as key to reviving the U.S. nuclear sector.
But many of the same financial, policy and practical challenges remain that stymied previous efforts to find a lasting solution for the country’s estimated 95,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. That could impede a burgeoning nuclear renaissance and the Trump administration’s ambition of adding some 300 GW of nuclear capacity over the next two decades, federal officials, utility planners, nuclear technology providers and analysts told Utility Dive.
“The generations who got electricity from the nuclear reactors should solve the problem and not kick the can down the road.”
Manuel C. Camargo
Principal Manager, Decommissioning, Southern California Edison
Manuel C. Camargo, the principal manager of decommissioning for Southern California Edison, said the utility supports the idea of the DOE’s “nuclear lifecycle innovation campuses,” as the department is calling them, as well as the department’s collaborative approach. SCE owns the San Onofre nuclear plant, which was retired in 2013, but decommissioning cannot be completed until the spent fuel is offsite, Camargo said.
In the meantime, SCE must pay rent to the Navy, which owns the land, until the federal government “delivers on its legal and contractual obligations” to dispose of the waste, he added. SCE would like to see a commitment to reliable funding for the spent fuel repositories as part of any new efforts, he said.
“Not solving spent fuel storage could impede deployment of advanced reactors” to help meet “exponential electricity demand growth,” Camargo said. “The generations who got electricity from the nuclear reactors should solve the problem and not kick the can down the road.”
How we got here
The first nuclear generation came online in Pennsylvania in 1957, and licensing peaked in the 1970s.
As radioactive waste accumulated at the sites of these power plants, concerns about safety in the 1980s led policymakers to tighten Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing requirements and address the spent fuel storage question.
In 1987, Ronald Reagan signed legislation designating Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the United States’ sole site for a permanent depository deep underground. But work on it stalled over the next 20 years in the face of state and regional opposition, and in 2011, the Obama administration effectively terminated it through defunding.
But without Yucca Mountain, the DOE could not assume responsibility for U.S. nuclear plants’ spent fuels by 1998, as required by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
Utilities and independent nuclear plant developers complained about their mounting costs to store and secure spent nuclear fuel.
A 2012 DOE Blue Ribbon Commission spotlighted the issue. Then a series of federal court decisions, made between 2013 and 2017, found in favor of the Decommissioning Plants Coalition of 13 shuttered plants.
“The court could not order DOE to act because Congress had not appropriated funds,” recalled Tim Smith, who helped form the coalition and also founded the advocacy group Governmental Strategies. “But it acknowledged a partial breach of contract and the litigants’ right to costs incurred.”
As spent fuel accrues across the country by an estimated 2,000 metric tons per year, so too do taxpayer obligations.
In 2025, the taxpayer liability for DOE’s failure to fulfill its legal obligation was $56.5 billion, and it continues to grow, Representative Mike Levin, D-CA, noted during a recent House hearing. He also emphasized bipartisan efforts to address the issue, including through the Spent Nuclear Fuel Solutions Caucus.
“We have to be realistic about the Trump administration's intention to build a lot more nuclear,” Levin said. “We should not be siting new nuclear power projects until we fix the back end of the fuel cycle.”
DOE’s solution
In January, the DOE issued a request for information seeking “input from states interested in hosting potential Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses to anchor integrated, full‑cycle nuclear ecosystems that could co-locate and support the entire nuclear value chain while exploring durable pathways for managing used nuclear materials in a safe, secure, and fiscally responsible manner.”
It said the campuses “must” support functions such as fuel fabrication, enrichment, nuclear fuel reprocessing or recycling and disposition of waste. They “could additionally support functions such as advanced reactor deployment, power generation, advanced manufacturing, and co‑located data centers.”
States were invited to submit “their proposed appropriate scope of the Innovation Campuses and the specific funding structures,” with emphasis on prioritizing private and state money while relying on “targeted, conditional, and time‑limited federal support, subject to the availability of appropriations and statutory authority.”
“DOE envisions these campuses would be deployed quickly, with initial facilities online in the 2027 timeframe,” the RFI says.
The deadline for states to respond was April 1. The department has not said when it will announce which proposals it chooses.
Of the 28 state responses to the RFI, Utah, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Washington signaled significant interest, the Nuclear Newswire reported April 1. A joint response from 11 states through the National Association of State Energy Officials suggested improvements.
Responses from Utah, Tennessee, Idaho and Nebraska included letters from their Republican governors describing potential private sector partners, sites, workforces, policy support and stakeholder concerns.
This was distinctly different from Nevada’s historic resistance to Yucca Mountain and more recent pushback in Texas and New Mexico.
Marla Morales is DOE’s acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and high-level waste. In an interview with Utility Dive, she said pairing waste storage with nuclear sector economic growth opportunities was a “game-changer.”
“States and communities have the opportunity to become part of the national and international economy and develop multi-generational economic growth, jobs and revenues if they are willing to help the federal government with its used fuel responsibility,” Morales said.
The DOE’s approach is reflected in its preference for the term “used fuel” over “spent fuel” or “waste” because it suggests “an asset that still holds 90% of its innate energy,” she added.
“Yucca Mountain is still the codified repository” under the 1982 law, but Energy Secretary Chris Wright has made it clear it is not the solution, Morales said.
Bipartisan support for used nuclear fuel storage and recycling
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have acknowledged the need for spent fuel storage and recycling to support the development of advanced nuclear.
“Nuclear has an essential role in the energy transition as a clean firm complement to renewables,” according to a report issued by the DOE under President Joe Biden. “The U.S. will need at least ~700–900 GW of additional clean firm capacity…[and] nuclear is one of the few proven options that could deliver this at scale.”
Among the key changes needed to support nuclear development is “a consent-based approach to siting federal consolidated interim storage and disposal facilities,” the report said.
While President Donald Trump has derided concerns about climate change, he has pushed an aggressive plan to expand nuclear power for artificial intelligence data centers and advanced manufacturing. In May 2025, he directed DOE to authorize advanced reactor demonstration projects outside of national labs, and 11 pilots are underway.
In March, the NRC issued its first commercial nuclear reactor construction permit in nearly 10 years to a subsidiary of Bill Gates’ TerraPower for a 345-MW plant planned near the site of a retiring coal plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
Other tailwinds for used nuclear fuel include a federal ban on uranium imports from Russia set to take effect in 2028, which will increase pressure to move toward a closed fuel cycle, or at least increase nuclear fuel recycling domestically.
‘Ever-changing leadership and uncertain funding’
“Theoretically, all 95,000 metric tons of stored U.S. used fuel could be reprocessed,” said Joseph Faldowski, a senior program manager for used fuel and high level waste at the Electric Power Research Institute.
But it depends on “the reprocessing process and type of reactor,” he acknowledged.
France, which generates more than 65% of its power from nuclear, routinely transports used fuel to reprocessing facilities where all its spent fuel is reprocessed, Faldowski said. According to Orano, the state-owned nuclear fuel company, 96% of spent nuclear fuel can be reused to manufacture new fuel. But even its world-leading LaHague facility has only reprocessed about 40,000 metric tons in 55 years of operation.
Technology aside, some of the biggest practical challenges to storing and recycling nuclear fuel have to do with the timelines and the financing.
“America’s past recycling programs have been costly and short-lived,” according to a recent report by the Energy Innovation Reform Project and nuclear startup Oklo that sought to make a case for commercial recycling of used nuclear fuel.
However, “technology, policy, and markets have evolved rapidly,” it said.
A different paper funded by the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and written by former NRC Chair Allison MacFarlane and former DOE official for spent fuel Lake H. Barrett said the Nuclear Waste Fund has been used for decades by Congress to offset the national debt and is kept “inaccessible” for use “to develop a nuclear waste disposal solution.”
“The Trump administration deserves credit for prioritizing the issue, but the [FY2027] budget request for this program is $102 million,” said Smith. “That is not nearly enough for development of the campuses, because DOE will only provide land, technical expertise, and policy support, and it is not clear what private investment is available.”
Other aspects of economic viability may burden DOE’s plans.
Much of the U.S. spent fuel is “old and cold” and “may not be economical to reprocess,” said Rod Baltzer, CEO of Deep Isolation, which sells drilling and storage services for nuclear waste.
“Theoretically, all 95,000 metric tons of stored U.S. used fuel could be reprocessed."
Joseph Faldowski
Senior Program Manager for used fuel and high level waste at the Electric Power Research Institute
As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, Levin said he has “helped secure more than $248 million to advance long-term management of spent nuclear fuel,” he said. “None of this is happening fast enough, but we have momentum and we are seeing progress.”
And while the DOE has said it wants to see some of its innovation campuses “online” in 2027, Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged the long-term nature of the commitment when he told the House Appropriations Committee in April that the government may need to form a “single purpose entity” to administer them.
A single purpose entity is one of the keys to closing the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle, according to the paper by MacFarlane and Barrett.
“First and foremost, the U.S. needs an entity that can successfully implement a solution,” the paper said. “What has become clear is that using a government agency, severely constrained by ever-changing leadership and uncertain funding, is challenging.”
Smith, of Government Strategies, echoed that sentiment.
“Canada, Sweden, and Finland are already designing permanent waste repositories because they set up organizations outside of government to dialogue and establish trust with the public,” he said.
