Waste as Wealth | Indiana Century S1E18

What if the thing everyone is afraid of—spent nuclear fuel—is actually Indiana's greatest economic opportunity?

The United States has approximately 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel sitting at 76 sites across 34 states. No permanent repository. The federal government promised to take it in 1998. They broke that promise. They have been paying billions in damages ever since. Total liability by 2030 is projected to exceed $30 billion. The Department of Energy pays $600-800 million every single year just for failing to do what they said they would do.

Indiana can solve this problem and get paid for it.

A Consolidated Interim Storage Facility at Crane Naval Base—a 64,000-acre secure military installation in rural Martin County—could accept spent fuel from across the country. Federal storage fees could exceed $1 billion per year. That money goes to property tax relief, schools, rural health clinics, and animal welfare.

But Indiana is not just storing the waste. We are consuming it.

Fast reactors like FANCO's EAGL-1 and the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) can burn spent fuel as fuel. Most reactors today use about one percent of the energy in uranium. The rest becomes "waste." Fast reactors can burn that "waste." What remains has a half-life of 300 years, not 300,000 years. Waste volume is reduced by 90-95%.

The IFR is a burner, not a breeder. It consumes more actinides than it creates. It is designed to reduce waste, not create more.

And there is more. Fast reactors produce high-temperature heat—about 500°C. That heat can power supercritical CO₂ turbines (50% efficient vs. 33% for steam) and drive synthetic fuel production. The U.S. military consumes 4 billion gallons of jet fuel annually. Indiana can produce domestic, carbon-negative synthetic jet fuel at Crane. This is not environmentalism. This is national security.

The ICP's waste-to-wealth pipeline: SMRs generate power → spent fuel goes to CISF at Crane → federal storage fees flow to Indiana → pyroprocessing extracts usable material → IFR burns that material → waste half-life drops from 300,000 years to 300 years → waste heat powers DAC, electrolysis, and Fischer-Tropsch → synthetic jet fuel for the U.S. military.

Total revenue at full scale: $5-8 billion per year. The Indiana Future Fund targets $100 billion by 2050. Permanent tax relief. $5,000 birth grant per Hoosier child.

The waste problem is not technical. It is political. Indiana can be the solution.

Show Notes

Topics: Spent nuclear fuel, Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF), Crane Naval Base, Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), pyroprocessing, synthetic jet fuel (SAF), national security, energy independence, federal liability, Nuclear Waste Fund, Host Community Fee, Indiana Future Fund

Indiana Century link: IndianaCentury.carrd.co

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Indiana Century Podcast, hosted by Corey Easterday. Episode 18, Waste as Wealth. Part 1, The Billion Dollar Liability. When most people think about nuclear waste, they think about something dangerous. Something that needs to be hidden, something that is a burden on future generations. They are not wrong, but they are not seeing the whole picture. Right now, the United States has approximately 90,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel sitting in dry casks at 76 sites across 34 different states, including at plants that have already been decommissioned. That fuel is not going anywhere. It is sitting there, monitored, guarded, safe, but it's supposed to be temporary. The federal government promised to take this fuel starting in 1998. They broke that promise. They have been paying utilities billions of dollars in damages ever since. The total liability by 2030 will be about $62 billion. The Department of Energy is paying $600 to $800 million every single year just for failing to do what they said that they would do. That is the problem. But it is also an opportunity. Because here's the thing. The spent fuel sitting in those casks is not waste. It is fuel. We have just not built the reactors that can burn it yet. Today, in episode 18, we talk about the spent nuclear fuel opportunity, how Indiana can capture federal storage fees, how fast reactors can actually consume that fuel. That is how we turn a 300,000 year liability into a 300-year asset. And why this is the financial engine that makes the rest of the Indiana Century Project possible. Let me start with a quick review. In episode 16, I talked about the geology of nuclear waste storage, but I want to make sure everyone understands what we are actually dealing with. Spent nuclear fuel is not a glowing green liquid, it is not bubbling sludge, it is a ceramic solid. Uranium dioxide pellets, about the size of a pencil eraser, stacked inside of metal fuel rods. These rods are all bundled together into fuel assemblies. After about five years in a reactor, the fuel becomes less efficient. Too many fission products have built up, so the reactor is shut down, the fuel is removed, and it goes into a cooling pool for five to ten years. Then it moves into the dry casks that I mentioned. These are giant concrete and steel cylinders, each holding about 10 tons of spent nuclear fuel. The casks sit on concrete pads, they're monitored, guarded, and safe. That is where most of America's spent fuel is right now, sitting in dry casks at 76 sites across 34 states, approximately 90,000 metric tons of it. More is being added every single year. The Energy Department projects this will reach 137,000 metric tons by 2050, nearly twice the statutory limit for the only authorized permanent disposal facility. Here's the problem. Those dry casks are safe, but they are not permanent. They are designed to last 100 to 200 years. After that, they need to be replaced, repackaged, or moved. This is just a pause, not a solution. The federal government has been searching for a permanent solution since the 1980s. Yucca Mountain in Nevada was the chosen site. It was studied for decades. The science was sound, the geology was suitable, but Nevada did not want it. Specifically, Senator Harry Reid made sure that it never happened. The project was defunded, and then the waste, it's just sitting where it is. Meanwhile, Finland built Oncolo, a deep geological repository carved into bedrock nearly 500 meters underground. They picked a site, they got permits and permission from the local community, and they started digging. This year, they're almost done. The difference between Finland and the United States is not geology. It's not technology, it is political will. Finland found a willing community. The United States has not. Indiana could be that willing community. Part three. The Federal Liability. Now here is where it gets interesting. The federal government's failure to take the spent fuel is not just a policy failure, it is a financial failure. And that financial failure is actually Indiana's opportunity. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 is a law that required the federal government to take possession of spent nuclear fuel from utilities starting in 1998. Utilities paid into a fund to cover the costs. Ratepayers, which is everyone who pays an electric bill, have prepaid approximately $46 billion into the nuclear waste fund. That money was supposed to pay for a permanent repository. The government took the money, they did not build the repository. So let's talk about the damages. The utilities sued the federal government and they won. The government has been paying damages ever since. To date, they have paid approximately $9 billion. By 2030, total liability is projected to reach $30.6 billion, and that is likely a conservative estimate. The Department of Energy pays $600 to $800 million every single year just for failing to do what they said they would do. That is real money. Money that already exists, that is being paid out for no benefit. No waste is being moved, no solutions being built. The money is just flowing to utilities as compensation for their storage costs. This is where the opportunity comes in. The government needs a place to put this fuel. They have the money, they have the legal authority to compel states to accept it, but they cannot force anyone. Nevada proved that. They need a volunteer. We're going to talk about a consolidated interim storage facility, or CISIF, at Crane Naval Base, which could accept spent nuclear fuel from across the country. The federal government would pay storage fees to the state of Indiana. At scale, those fees could exceed $1 billion per year. That money would flow directly to our state. And here's the part that makes it different from every other waste proposal. We do not just want to store that waste. We want to consume it. Part 4. Crane as the solution. Why crane? Let me walk you through it. First we'll talk about scale. Crane is massive. The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane covers approximately 64,000 acres. That is about 100 square miles. It is one of the largest naval installations in the entire world. There is plenty of room for a consolidated interim storage facility, or SISIF, as well as pyroprocessing, integral fast reactors, and synthetic fuel production, all on a secure, controlled site. Second is its rural location. Crane is in Martin County, Indiana. The population density of the surrounding area is extremely low. The nearest town of any size is Bloomington, about 45 minutes away. Crane is surrounded by Hoosier National Forest. There are no major population centers nearby. The buffer zone is already built in. Next is security. Crane is a Department of Defense installation. It is already secure. It already has restricted access. It already has the infrastructure to handle sensitive materials. In essence, it is a fortress. Fuel can be shipped by rail or truck. The security is military grade. Next is geology. Crane sits on stable sedimentary rock, low seismic risk, no volcanoes, very deep groundwater. The same geology that makes Indiana boring makes it perfect for storing nuclear waste. We also need to talk about the existing infrastructure. Crane already has the logistics, the workforce, and the security protocols. The hard work of building a secure facility is already done. The Army and Navy have been operating at Crane for over 80 years. So, what's the pitch? I suggest the federal government pays Indiana storage fees for a SISIF at Crane, over $1 billion per year. Indiana provides the geology, the security, and the political will. We also need to talk about the host community fee, which would ensure that the money stays in the community, mandating property tax relief, school funding, rural health clinics, and animal welfare. Ideally, this will be locked in by constitutional amendment. The legislature cannot just simply take it away. But again, we are not just storing the waste, we want to consume it. Part 5. Waste as fuel. The Integral Fast Reactor, or IFR, is something I talked about in episode 17. But let me recap why it matters for this episode. The IFR was developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the 1980s and 1990s. It is a fast reactor. Sodium-cooled closed fuel cycle. Here is what the IFR does differently from basically every other nuclear reactor. It can burn spent nuclear fuel as fuel. Most reactors today are thermal reactors. They use slow neutrons to split uranium-235. They only use about 1% of the energy inside that uranium. The rest of it becomes waste. Fast reactors use high energy neutrons. They can split plutonium and other heavy elements into smaller, safer elements. They can burn fuel that thermal reactors simply cannot touch. The IFR is what is called a burner reactor. It does not produce more fuel than it consumes. That would be a breeder fast reactor. It consumes more than it creates. It is designed to reduce waste, not to create more fuel. So, what does this mean for waste? Spent fuel from thermal reactors still has more than 90% of its potential energy left. The IFR can burn that fuel. What remains is a half-life of 200 to 300 years, not 200,000 to 300,000 years. This also reduces the volume of waste. Waste volume is reduced by 90 to 95%. The geological problem becomes a simpler engineering problem. You do not need to isolate waste for 100,000 years or more. You need to store it for a few centuries while fast reactors burn through it. So, what would an IFR at crane look like? The IFR would be co-located within the sysaf at crane. Spent fuel arrives, it is stored temporarily, then it is processed through pyroprocessing, a proven electro refining process. The usable material is extracted. New fuel is fabricated, the IFR burns it. The remaining waste is vitrified into glass logs, safe for 300 years. This is manageable, a fraction of the original volume. The IFR also generates electricity. It generates high temperature heat. That heat is not actually waste, it is a valuable resource. But here's the key none of this happens without a workforce. The Indiana Century Project proposes a highly trained state workforce to not only operate the SMRs, but to operate the CISIF and the IFR. The same workforce that runs the SMRs will eventually run the fast reactors. The same training pipeline that produces reactor operators will produce fuel handlers, pyroprocessing technicians, and waste managers. The Indiana Century Corps Energy Corps is not just for building power, it is for managing the entire fuel cycle. This is the Navy model applied to the whole system. The people who operate the reactors are the same people who maintain them. The people who handle the fuel are the same people who manage the waste. The continuity of training, the shared safety culture, the discipline. It all comes from the same pipeline. This pipeline could partner with Purdue University, Ivy Tech, the Navy nuclear veterans who are already living in Indiana. The ICC is not just a jobs program, it is a sovereignty program. It ensures that Indiana controls its own energy destiny, from fuel to power to waste to fuel again. This is what makes the Indiana Century Project different. We are not outsourcing this work to contractors from out of state. We are not depending on foreign fuel suppliers. We are building a Hoosier workforce that can do it all. The IFR is the technology. It has already been proven. The ICC is the workforce. It just needs to be built. Together, they make the solution real. Part six. The National Security Case. We import most of our uranium. We depend on foreign enrichment. Russia is currently the only commercial supplier of HALU fuel for advanced reactors. That is a vulnerability. The spent fuel sitting in dry casks across the country is already mined. It is already enriched. It is already fabricated. The energy is just sitting there. We do not need to import a single pound of new uranium. We do not need to enrich a single new gram. We just need to build the reactors that can burn what we already have. This is energy independence, not just reducing imports, eliminating the need for imports. And here is the bigger picture. If we can consume the existing stockpile of spent fuel, we can generate clean power for over a century without mining any new uranium. That buys us time. Time to build out renewables, time to develop storage, time to transition to a 100% renewable future. This is nuclear as a bridge. It's the part that matters. Nuclear is a viable stepping stone to a fully renewable future, but only if we have a plan for the waste. Otherwise, it is just as irresponsible as what we are doing today. Fast reactors specifically are that bridge. They consume the waste. They generate clean power, and when the spent fuel is gone, when the last cask is emptied, we shut them down and walk away to renewables. That is the full vision. Extractive to circular, waste to wealth, bridge to renewable. Part seven. So let's take a look at the revenue stack at scale. The first revenue source is the consolidated interim storage facility storage fees from the federal government, which could be one to one and a half billion dollars per year. Next is electricity sales from our small modular reactor fleet or the IFR, which could be two to three billion dollars per year. Next is synthetic jet fuel production sales $500 million to $1 billion per year. We have green hydrogen sales, $500 million to $1 billion, small modular reactor, module exports, $1 to $2 billion per year, supercritical CO2, turbine exports, $500 million to $1 billion per year, and carbon credits from direct air capture $200 to $500 million per year. The total five to eight billion dollars per year. These are not speculative. These markets already exist. We know that the demand exists. The federal government is already paying billions in damages for their failure to store nuclear spent fuel. The US military is already buying jet fuel. Industry is already buying hydrogen. The only thing missing is the production capacity. So how would this revenue be used? First, it is a return on investment. It pays for the infrastructure, the small modular reactors, IFR, SISF, all the hardware that we need. Second is the Indiana Future Fund, a sovereign wealth fund. The target is $100 billion by 2050. Earnings fund permanent tax relief. This could allow a $5,000 birth grant per Hoosier Child. This would help fund the ICC Workforce, their training, wages, benefits for the Indiana Century Corps. The project pays for itself. It generates revenue. It captures federal money that is already being spent. It creates wealth that stays right here in Indiana. Part 8. What this means for Indiana. Let's take a look at where we are. The spent nuclear fuel sitting in dry casks all across the country is not actually waste. It is fuel. Indiana can consume it. And we can get paid for doing it. So this is the pipeline. Small modular reactors replace coal. They generate clean power. The spent fuel goes to a SISF at Crane where it can be safely stored. The SISF accepts fuel from other states. The federal government pays storage fees a billion dollars plus per year. Then pyroprocessing extracts the usable material from that spent nuclear fuel. After that, the IFR burns that fuel material. The waste half-life goes from 300,000 years all the way down to 300 years. The IFR heat powers supercritical CO2 turbines. We generate electricity. The waste heat drives direct air capture. Direct air capture captures the CO2 through electrolysis, producing green hydrogen. FT synthesizes hydrogen and CO2 into synthetic jet fuel. This fuel is sold to the US military or commercial airlines. The revenue funds the entire system. The result is Indiana solves the nation's waste problem. Indiana generates five to eight billion dollars per year in revenue. Indiana produces domestic carbon-negative jet fuel for the U.S. military. Indiana would break foreign dependence on nuclear fuel imports for the whole country. This is how Indiana could create thousands of permanent, high-paying jobs. Indiana would become the energy and manufacturing capital of the heartland. The waste problem is not technical, it is political. Finland proved that. They picked a site, they got permits, they started digging. And now they're almost done. Indiana can do the same. Part 9. Conclusion and preview. 90,000 tons, 76 sites, over $30 billion in federal liability, $600 to $800 million paid every year for doing literally nothing. That is the cost of inaction. That is the price of political paralysis. That is money that Indiana could capture. The spent fuel sitting in dry casks across the country is not waste. It is fuel waiting to be consumed. We just have not built the reactors yet that can burn it. Indiana could be the first to build them. And there is a bonus. Fast reactors produce heat. That heat can power synthetic fuel production. The U.S. military is the world's largest consumer of jet fuel. 400 billion gallons a year. Every drop imported or refined from foreign crude. Indiana can produce domestic, carbon-negative synthetic jet fuel at Crane Naval Base. This is not environmentalism. It is national security. The Indiana Century Project is not just about building power, it is about building the whole system, from fuel to power to waste to fuel again. And then, when the job's done, walking away to a renewable future. Next week in Episode 19, mapping the HSR route, the engineering, the right-of-way challenges, the station locations, how we build the innovation triangle, and why high-speed rail is not just transportation, it is economic connective tissue. Before we get there, I want you to think about something. The federal government is already paying billions of dollars in damages. That money is not going to a solution. It is just going to utilities. Indiana can redirect that money, capture it, use it to build the future. That is sovereignty. Not asking permission, instead, building the solution. I'm Corey, this is the Indiana Sentry Podcast. And remember, sovereignty isn't given, it is built