(Oil Price)– Plutonium material from dismantled U.S. nuclear warheads from the Cold War could be offered to American power firms as a fuel to potentially use in advanced nuclear technologies, under a draft plan of the Trump Administration.
The U.S. does not use plutonium in nuclear power facilities. In the past, plutonium has been converted into fuel for commercial reactors in the United States only for short test runs.
Now the Trump Administration, which looks to give impetus to nuclear energy, considers making available 20 metric tons of plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads to U.S. power firms, Reuters reports, citing a source with knowledge of the Administration’s plans.
The plutonium would come from a larger stockpile of 34 metric tons, which the U.S. had pledged to dispose of under a 2000 non-proliferation deal with Russia.
The power industry is set to obtain the plutonium at no or very little cost, but it will be responsible for all costs related to transportation, design, and construction of facilities to process and recycle the plutonium to turn it into fuel for the nuclear power industry, a draft memo cited by Reuters showed.
Analysts and nuclear safety experts don’t think this is a viable path for fueling advanced nuclear systems, which are expected to help meet the surge in U.S. power demand driven by AI data centers and onshoring of manufacturing.
The plan to make plutonium available would be a follow-up to an executive order by President Donald Trump from May, which orders the Secretary of Energy to halt the so-called surplus plutonium dilute and dispose program except with respect to the Department of Energy’s legal obligations to the State of South Carolina.
“In place of this program, the Secretary of Energy shall establish a program to dispose of surplus plutonium by processing and making it available to industry in a form that can be utilized for the fabrication of fuel for advanced nuclear technologies,” the executive order says.
The Secretary of Energy is also ordered to submit a report containing recommendations for the efficient use of the uranium, plutonium, and other products recovered through recycling and reprocessing. The report is due within 240 days of May 23, the date of the executive order.
The Department of Energy is “evaluating a variety of strategies to build and strengthen domestic supply chains for nuclear fuel, including plutonium,” DOE told Reuters, without confirming or denying the plan to make plutonium available for potential nuclear energy fuel.
Experts say the plutonium is best placed in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), an underground storage site in New Mexico.
“The excess plutonium is a dangerous waste product and DOE should stick to the safer, more secure and far cheaper plan to dilute and directly dispose of it in WIPP,” Edwin Lyman, a nuclear physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told Reuters.
Despite these concerns, it is understandable why the Trump Administration would be looking to support the use of dismantled plutonium for nuclear power generation.
Soaring demand for electricity to power the AI boom is creating a rush to develop small modular reactors – in the U.S. and globally – to meet the growing energy needs of the Big Tech firms with electricity that’s both reliable and low-carbon.
Many start-ups in the United States and Europe are vying to become the first to not only design but also put into commercial operation the next generation of advanced nuclear reactors.
Earlier this month, major data center operator Equinix announced a series of agreements to secure advanced nuclear electricity, including power purchase agreements and a pre-order for microreactors, to fuel its data centers.
Goldman Sachs Research expects nuclear power to play a key role in a suite of new energy infrastructure expected to be built to meet surging AI-driven power demand from data centers.
However, nuclear power will not be enough to meet the demand, and natural gas will stay in the mix, complemented by renewable energy and battery technology, according to Goldman Sachs.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
