Advancing Research in Nuclear Fuel Recycling Act of 2025

The bill orders the Secretary of Energy, through the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy, to conduct a detailed study of technologies and options for recycling spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Recycling here means taking valuable radioactive materials out of nuclear waste and preparing them so they can be reused in nuclear reactors or other commercial uses. The study must look at how practical it is to use dedicated recycling facilities to turn spent fuel, including high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel, into new fuel for current and advanced reactors and for non‑reactor uses like medical, space, and battery applications. It must compare recycling to the current “once‑through” system, where fuel is used once and then stored, including looking at storage needs, costs, benefits, and risks. The study also has to compare different recycling methods, such as aqueous processes like PUREX and non‑aqueous processes like pyro‑electrochemistry. The Secretary must examine whether nuclear waste can be processed to pull out specific isotopes needed in medicine, industry, space power sources, and advanced batteries, and whether this is technically and economically realistic. The study must analyze options for placing and sizing recycling facilities—such as one national site, several regional sites, or facilities at current storage or reactor locations—and recommend one or more approaches based on environmental, transportation, infrastructure, capital, and other risks. The bill directs the Department of Energy to identify who is currently affected by long‑term temporary storage of spent fuel—including individuals, communities, businesses, and Tribal and local governments—and assess how recycling and moving fuel off‑site could change economic, health, safety, and environmental risks for them. It must also identify methods to track and account for new recycled fuel and any new radioactive waste streams created by recycling. The study must look for gaps and inconsistencies in federal rules and definitions related to radioactive waste and recycling and compare U.S. terms with those used in other countries. Based on this, it must suggest updates to modernize these definitions. Finally, it must evaluate possible federal and state policy changes that might support recycling and reactors that use recycled fuel, and how recycling could affect the need for nuclear waste storage. Within one year of the bill becoming law, the Secretary must send a written report to several committees in the Senate and House. The report has to summarize the study’s results and findings, explain why the U.S. does not currently recycle spent fuel, describe remaining challenges and barriers, and list policy options with their possible benefits and risks, including how they compare to current or past policies. The report must be written in a way that non‑experts can understand, follow a set structure, be no more than 120 pages not counting front matter, references, and appendices, and be released to the public.