Learn about a used fuel recycling pilot facility

Moderator: Shikha Prasad, senior nuclear physicist with technology company SLB and ANS Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division vice chair, will be moderating the session.

The topic: Based in southern Wisconsin, SHINE is leading a venture to address the nation’s used nuclear fuel disposal challenges by developing a facility that incorporates a set of interlinked technologies to reduce the environmental and economic impacts of nuclear energy generation via recycling and, ultimately, transmutation of used fuel. This approach will reduce the longevity and long-term radiotoxicity of high-level waste, improve reprocessing economics via value-added isotope extraction, and advance technologies to enable fusion energy generation.

Ross Radel will provide background on SHINE’s proposed technical processes for used fuel recycling and isotope recovery and discuss the regulatory, statutory, and nonproliferation implications for constructing and operating such a facility in the United States.

About the speaker: Ross Radel, PE, has served as SHINE’s CTO since April 2021. He has more than 20 years of research and development experience on a variety of fusion, fission, and particle accelerator technologies that are directly applicable to SHINE’s core technologies. From 2011 to2021, he served as the chief executive and as a member of the board of directors of Phoenix Nuclear Labs, where he led dozens of technical projects related to neutron generation and neutron-based detection methods.