The Trump administration’s plan to fast-track construction of new commercial nuclear reactors to address a power crunch around the country leans heavily on a small group of start-ups trumpeting a bold claim: that they can make almost all of these operations’ radioactive waste disappear.

That effort is already underway, with a company called Oklo announcing this month it will spend $1.7 billion to build an “Advanced Fuel Center” made up of shiny, futuristic buildings on a Tennessee plot where uranium was enriched for the Manhattan Project more than 80 years ago. The first phase of the development, to be completed in the next five to seven years, will use nascent recycling machinery to spin radioactive reactor waste into fresh, usable fuel for plants.

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