Recycling plutonium from power reactors into mixed-oxide (MOX) nuclear fuel has been economically unattractive everywhere it has been implemented. Natural uranium isn't very expensive and separating the plutonium from spent fuel doesn't save much on waste disposal costs either. The US canceled a new MOX plant just 7 years ago due to cost and schedule problems:
Work started on the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) in 2007, with a 2016 start-up envisaged. Although based on France's Melox MOX facility, the US project has presented many first-of-a-kind challenges and in 2012 the US Government Accountability Office suggested it would likely not start up before 2019 and cost at least USD7.7 billion, far above original estimate of USD4.9 billion.
The most interesting "recycling" effort right now is the laser enrichment process of Silex/Global Laser Enrichment:
The company plans to re-enrich old depleted uranium tails from the obsolete gas diffusion enrichment process back up to natural uranium levels of 0.7% U-235. That uranium in turn would be processed by existing commercial centrifuge enrichment to upgrade it to power reactor fuel.
vavooom•11m ago
"The company will separate out valuable isotopes such as Strontium-90, which has fuel applications in marine and aerospace engineering, and use neutrons to transmute the rest into shorter-lived isotopes"
From Wikipedia, it looks like Strontium-90 can be used in "treatment of bone cancer, and to treat coronary restenosis via vascular brachytherapy". Pretty cool.
philipkglass•12m ago
https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/US-MOX-facility-cont...
Work started on the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) in 2007, with a 2016 start-up envisaged. Although based on France's Melox MOX facility, the US project has presented many first-of-a-kind challenges and in 2012 the US Government Accountability Office suggested it would likely not start up before 2019 and cost at least USD7.7 billion, far above original estimate of USD4.9 billion.
The most interesting "recycling" effort right now is the laser enrichment process of Silex/Global Laser Enrichment:
https://www.wkms.org/energy/2025-07-02/company-developing-pa...
The company plans to re-enrich old depleted uranium tails from the obsolete gas diffusion enrichment process back up to natural uranium levels of 0.7% U-235. That uranium in turn would be processed by existing commercial centrifuge enrichment to upgrade it to power reactor fuel.