On March 17, 2026, the Alabama Senate adopted Senate Joint Resolution 89 by voice vote, and on March 31 it passed the full Legislature and was delivered to the Governor. SJR89 formally urges the Governor and relevant state agencies to recognize the value of spent nuclear fuel and take state actions toward its development.

This resolution matters to us at Flibe Energy in a very direct way. Sponsored by Senator Larry Stutts, the resolution explicitly names the federal funding award to Flibe Energy, Inc., together with Alabama A&M University (AAMU) and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), to develop an approach for recycling spent nuclear fuel into liquid fuel suitable for advanced molten salt reactors. The work that Flibe Energy has pursued since 2011 — developing Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor technology and the associated fuel cycle — has now found formal, bipartisan recognition in the Alabama Legislature.

The resolution also puts legislative weight behind Alabama’s engagement with the Department of Energy’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus (NLIC) initiative, a federal-state partnership framework aimed at modernizing the complete nuclear fuel cycle. Flibe Energy’s technical work was central to Alabama’s RFI response to DOE, and SJR89 makes clear that the full Legislature stands behind that effort.

Below is the full text of the resolution as passed.

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SJR89 — Full Text

SJR89 — URGING THE GOVERNOR AND RELEVANT STATE AGENCIES TO RECOGNIZE THE VALUE OF SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL AND TAKE STATE ACTIONS TOWARD ITS DEVELOPMENT.

WHEREAS, the State of Alabama has had two large nuclear power facilities for many years, the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens, Alabama, and the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Generating Plant near Dothan, Alabama; and

WHEREAS, the operation of these plants has produced substantial quantities of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) that is currently stored on-site at both facilities; and

WHEREAS, Alabama ratepayers have paid a tax of one dollar per megawatt-hour from the energy generated by these two plants, which has gone into a federal Nuclear Waste Fund to develop a geologic repository for the permanent disposal of this spent nuclear fuel, pursuant to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982; and

WHEREAS, there is no federal effort underway to develop a permanent geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel; and

WHEREAS, spent nuclear fuel contains several categories of materials of varying economic value, enormous energy potential, and long-term radiological hazard; and

WHEREAS, the short-term concerns (on the order of decades) around the radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel are dominated by fission products that decay quickly and can no longer undergo fission to release energy; and

WHEREAS, the long-term concerns (on the order of thousands of years) about the radiotoxicity of spent nuclear fuel are dominated by transuranic materials that still have the potential to undergo fission to release energy, which would transform them into short-term fission products; and

WHEREAS, the uranium that makes up the majority of the spent nuclear fuel has very little radioactivity and has undergone little change in the reactor beyond a depletion of its fissile content, and is suitable for recycle or disposal as low-level waste, not requiring the complexity and expense of a geologic repository, so long as it is sufficiently decontaminated from fission products and transuranics; and

WHEREAS, the economics of our national uranium supply have continued to degrade, both as a consequence of long-term under-investment as well as over-reliance on foreign suppliers, including adversarial nations such as Russia; and

WHEREAS, increasingly high costs for conventional nuclear power puts at risk the continued operation of the Browns Ferry and Farley plants; and

WHEREAS, the aging infrastructure of both of these facilities also leads to strong concerns about the status of their sites, their spent nuclear fuel storage, and the economic impact to the local communities if and when their operators elect to decommission these plants at some point in the future; and

WHEREAS, the United States Department of Energy (DOE) issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking expressions of interest from states to host Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses (NLICs) as voluntary federal-state partnerships to modernize the full nuclear fuel cycle, strengthen U.S. leadership in advanced nuclear energy, drive economic growth, create jobs, enhance energy security, and support advanced reactors, fuel fabrication, enrichment, used fuel reprocessing and recycling, waste disposition, manufacturing, power generation, and related infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, recent studies have been undertaken in the state that point to the potential to use the materials in spent nuclear fuel as fuel sources in advanced reactors that avoid conventional fuel fabrication by the use of liquid fuel; and

WHEREAS, these studies have been key in the announced award of federal funds to the Alabama team of Flibe Energy, Inc., Alabama A&M University (AAMU), and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to continue to develop an approach to recycle spent nuclear fuel into new liquid fuel suitable for these locally-developed, advanced reactors; now therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF ALABAMA, BOTH HOUSES THEREOF CONCURRING, That:

(1) The Legislature strongly supports using existing spent nuclear fuel resources in Alabama as a future energy resource.

(2) The Legislature strongly supports responding to the DOE request for information around NLIC sites in Alabama or participating in regional efforts, and urges the Governor, in coordination with relevant state agencies — including the Alabama Department of Workforce Development and the Alabama Public Service Commission — to prepare and submit a response by April 1, 2026 (or prepare for future opportunities if more strategic), outlining Alabama’s interest in recycling spent fuel into new liquid fuels for advanced reactors, potential legacy site use, regional collaboration, and partnership framework.

(3) The Governor and relevant agencies are further urged to emphasize in any such response how selection could unlock future federal funding for universities, small businesses, workforce programs, and related nuclear innovation, and to engage Alabama industry partners, utilities, research institutions, workforce providers, and communities in developing the proposal, considering regional approaches and potential state support mechanisms contingent on federal selection and appropriations.

(4) The Governor and relevant agencies recognize efforts at Alabama A&M University to advance a Center for Nuclear Science and Engineering (CNSE) to become a nuclear center of excellence with notable emphasis in liquid fuel reactor technologies, intended to complement AAMU’s recent selection as a strategic leader in Alabama developing technologies to support artificial intelligence and data centers.

(5) Copies of this resolution be transmitted to the Governor of Alabama, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, the Alabama congressional delegation, and appropriate legislative committees.

(6) This resolution take effect immediately upon passage and approval by the Governor, or upon becoming law.

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Why This Matters

The technical framing of SJR89 reflects a level of nuclear literacy that is genuinely uncommon in a legislative document. The resolution distinguishes between the short-lived fission products that dominate early radiotoxicity and the long-lived transuranics that dominate the thousand-year hazard, and it correctly notes that the transuranics are precisely the materials that can be fissioned in an advanced reactor, thereby solving both the waste problem and the energy problem simultaneously. The bulk uranium fraction, meanwhile, is of low radioactivity and manageable outside a deep geologic repository once properly separated from the more hazardous components.

Spent nuclear fuel from conventional light water reactors is not a liability to be buried; it is a starting material for the next generation of reactors. This is the connection to liquid fluoride reactor technology and the thorium fuel cycle. Alabama has two plants’ worth of that material sitting in storage casks right now, and the state Legislature has now gone on record saying it wants to use it.

The resolution passed the Senate by voice vote on the day it was introduced and moved through the full Legislature in just two weeks. That kind of momentum reflects what happens when good technical groundwork meets receptive policymakers. Senator Stutts and the Alabama Legislature deserve credit for moving quickly and getting this right.

The role of Flibe Energy and our partners at AAMU and TVA in this outcome reflects years of patient technical work, community engagement, and policy education. We are grateful for the Legislature’s recognition and look forward to continuing to build Alabama’s position as a national leader in advanced nuclear energy and the closed fuel cycle.