Curio, a developer of advanced nuclear recycling technologies, said it has received a cost-share award from the U.S. Department of Energy to accelerate development of its proprietary NuCycle process for recycling used nuclear fuel from light-water reactors.
The award is intended to support Curio’s transition from detailed engineering and design work into pilot-scale equipment development and, ultimately, commercial deployment.
Curio said the funding will support a collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, along with other technical organizations, to optimize NuCycle for scale-up and commercialization. The effort’s core aim is to produce detailed engineering designs and specifications for NuCycle’s key processes and to prepare for a pilot-scale demonstration.
According to the company, NuCycle was designed to improve the economics of fuel recycling by increasing resource utilization through uranium recovery as UF6, reducing high-level waste generation through complete recovery of minor actinides and key isotopes, and strengthening security through the co-extraction of transuranics.
Curio also pointed to prior cost-shared work conducted over the past three years under the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E and GAIN initiatives. The company said those efforts included laboratory-scale experiments, safeguards and security by design, advanced modeling and simulation, waste form development, and techno-economic analyses, which it said reduced operational uncertainties and demonstrated individual unit operations.
Curio describes its broader mission as advancing sustainable nuclear power generation, fuel recycling, and waste management as part of what it calls “The 2nd Nuclear Era.” The company said it has achieved lab-scale validation across four DOE national labs, secured $14 million in competitive federal grants, and partnered with Utilities Service Alliance (USA) on collaboration and supplier-partner agreement options tied to its network of U.S. member reactors.
KEY QUOTE:
“This award is further validation of Curio’s game-changing advanced nuclear recycling technology and process for the future of nuclear energy in the United States. With the Department of Energy’s partnership, Curio’s NuCycle is now moving decisively towards scaling up for ultimate full commercialization. NuCycle will fundamentally change how used nuclear fuel is processed and managed. By dramatically increasing resource recovery while minimizing waste and embedding safeguards by design, NuCycle is poised to dramatically unlock this untapped national resource in a safe, secure and economically robust manner.”
Ed McGinnis, Chief Executive Officer, Curio
