Waste as Wealth | Indiana Century S1E18

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 [https://indianacentury.carrd.co/] Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. IndianaCentury.org

The Fuel Frontier | Indiana Century S1E17

The United States is dependent on foreign sources for nuclear fuel. We import most of our uranium. We depend on foreign enrichment. Russia is currently the only commercial supplier of HALEU, the fuel needed for most advanced reactors. That is a national security vulnerability. Indiana can fix it. In this episode, host Kory walks through the nuclear fuel cycle from uranium mining to enrichment to fabrication. He explains what HALEU is, why it matters, and how the Indiana Nuclear Fuel Campus in the Fishers-Noblesville corridor could break the Russian monopoly and restore American sovereignty over its own fuel supply. But the episode goes further. The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), developed at Argonne National Laboratory in the 1980s and 1990s, is a fast reactor that can burn spent nuclear fuel as fuel. Most reactors today use about one percent of the energy in uranium. The rest becomes "waste." The IFR can burn that "waste." What remains has a half-life of 300 years, not 300,000 years. The IFR is a burner, not a breeder. Its conversion ratio is about 0.5 to 0.8, meaning it consumes more actinides than it creates. It is designed to reduce waste, not create more. The IFR was canceled in 1994 for political reasons, not technical ones. The Clinton administration feared reprocessing could lead to weapons proliferation. But the IFR's electrorefining process kept plutonium mixed with fission products. It was never weapons usable. The science was sound. Politics killed it. Today, FANCO (First American Nuclear Company) is headquartered in Indianapolis. Their EAGL-1 is a lead bismuth cooled fast reactor with a closed fuel cycle. They want to build an energy park in Indiana. If they succeed, Indiana will have the first commercial fast reactor in the United States. The episode also covers the national security case. Fast reactors produce high-temperature heat that can power synthetic jet fuel production. The U.S. military consumes 4 billion gallons of jet fuel annually. Domestic, carbon-negative fuel production is a strategic imperative. This is not environmentalism. It is national security. The featured book is "Plentiful Energy" by Charles Till and Yoon Chang, the definitive account of the IFR program by the two men who led it. Show Notes Featured Book: Plentiful Energy: The Story of the Integral Fast Reactor by Charles E. Till and Yoon I. Chang Topics: Nuclear fuel cycle, uranium mining, enrichment, HALEU, Russian monopoly, Integral Fast Reactor, IFR burner, closed fuel cycle, pyroprocessing, FANCO EAGL-1, Indiana Nuclear Fuel Campus, synthetic jet fuel, national security Indiana Century link: IndianaCentury.carrd.co [https://indianacentury.carrd.co/] Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. IndianaCentury.org

Indiana's Geology for Nuclear | Indiana Century S1E16

What if the solution to America's nuclear waste problem has been sitting under our feet for millions of years? The United States has 95,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel sitting in dry casks at 79 reactor sites across the country. No permanent repository. The federal government has paid billions in damages for failing to take the fuel, with total liability expected to reach $62 billion by 2030. Indiana has the answer. Stable sedimentary rock. Low seismic risk. No volcanoes. The Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center in southern Indiana is already a secure federal facility with the infrastructure to handle sensitive materials. It is the perfect location for a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility that could generate over one billion dollars per year in federal storage fees. In this episode, host Kory walks through Indiana's geology from basement rock to glacial till. He explains why boring geology is exactly what you want for nuclear waste. He covers the Onkalo repository in Finland, the model for deep geological disposal. He addresses the groundwater concerns with multiple barriers: cladding, canister, bentonite clay, and hundreds of feet of low permeability rock. Kory also covers fast reactors like FANCO's EAGL-1, which can consume spent nuclear fuel as fuel. What remains has a half-life of 300 years, not 300,000. He introduces the national security case: synthetic jet fuel production at Crane using nuclear power and captured CO₂. The U.S. military is the world's largest consumer of jet fuel. Domestic, carbon-negative fuel production is a strategic imperative. The featured book is "Too Hot to Touch" by William M. Alley and Rosemarie Alley, the definitive history of America's failed nuclear waste policy. Show Notes Featured Book: Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste by William M. Alley and Rosemarie Alley Topics: Onkalo repository, spent nuclear fuel, dry cask storage, federal liability, Indiana geology, seismic stability, Crane Naval Base, CISF, Host Community Fee, fast reactors, FANCO EAGL-1, synthetic jet fuel, national security, ICC Energy Corps Indiana Century link: IndianaCentury.carrd.co [https://indianacentury.carrd.co/] Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. IndianaCentury.org

Navy Nuclear Safety Culture | Indiana Century S1E15

The United States Navy has operated nuclear reactors for 70 years. Hundreds of submarines and aircraft carriers. Thousands of reactor years of operation. Zero reactor accidents. Zero meltdowns. Zero releases of radioactive material that caused harm to the public. That record is not luck. It is the result of a safety culture built from scratch by Admiral Hyman Rickover, a culture so powerful that every Navy nuclear veteran carries it for life. In this episode, host Kory sits down with Ken Hull, a fellow Navy nuclear veteran from the USS New Mexico. Ken served as a shutdown reactor operator and qualified Engineering Watch Supervisor. Today, he works as an instrumentation and controls technician at the Crane Clean Energy Center, the former Three Mile Island plant that is being restarted. They discuss what makes Navy nuclear safety culture different. The three pillars: conservative design, relentless training, and questioning attitude. The Swiss cheese model where enough small failures lead to disaster, and why the Navy treats small things like big things so big things never happen. The containment system that protected the public even during the Three Mile Island partial meltdown. The difference between Navy and commercial nuclear. And why small modular reactors that are factory built and standardized like Navy reactors are the future. Ken also shares his perspective on data centers, state ownership versus corporate control, and why he would love to see a nuclear reactor back in his home state of Indiana. The featured book is "Admiral Rickover and the Nuclear Navy" by Francis Duncan, the definitive history of the man who invented the gold standard. Show Notes Featured Book: Admiral Rickover and the Nuclear Navy by Francis Duncan Guest: Ken Hull, former Navy nuclear operator, USS New Mexico; Reactor I&C Tech at Crane Clean Energy Center. Topics: Navy nuclear safety culture, small modular reactors, Three Mile Island restart, spent fuel storage, containment systems, fast reactors, state owned infrastructure, Host Community Fee, ICC Energy Corps IndianaCentury.carrd.co [https://indianacentury.carrd.co/] Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. IndianaCentury.org

The Reactor in a Box | Indiana Century S1E14

What if a nuclear reactor could fit in a shipping container? What if it could be built in a factory, shipped by truck or rail, and assembled on site like a giant battery? That is not science fiction. That is the small modular reactor, and it is happening now. In December 2025, the Department of Energy awarded the Tennessee Valley Authority 400 million dollars to build a GE Hitachi BWRX-300 at the Clinch River site in Tennessee. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission accepted the construction permit application in July 2025. Construction is scheduled for 2026 with operation expected by 2033. Indiana Michigan Power is part of the TVA coalition, and the Rockport Plant in Spencer County is a potential deployment site. In this episode, host Kory breaks down everything you need to know about SMRs. He explains why traditional nuclear power failed. Custom built, site built, one of a kind projects with no learning curve and no economies of scale. He then shows how SMRs fix that problem. Factory fabrication, modular construction, standardized design. The same industrial revolution that made solar panels cheap and cars reliable can make nuclear power affordable. Kory also covers safety. SMRs use passive safety, meaning the physics of the reactor shuts it down without pumps, generators, or operator action. No meltdown scenario. No evacuation zone. He addresses the global competition. China has 26 reactors under construction and is building SMRs today. Russia has a floating SMR that has been operating since 2019. America is catching up, and Indiana can lead. The episode also features FANCO's EAGL-1, a lead bismuth cooled fast reactor that can consume spent nuclear fuel as fuel. The company is headquartered in Indianapolis. Kory explains how fast reactors turn a 300,000 year waste problem into a 300 year manageable project. The featured book is "The New Map" by Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize winning author who shows how energy is power and how the map is being redrawn without America while we debate. Indiana Century link: IndianaCentury.carrd.co [https://indianacentury.carrd.co/] Subscribe wherever you get podcasts. IndianaCentury.org