The Nuclear Reactors of the Future Have a Russia Problem

Mar 17, 2022 7:00 AMNext-generation nuclear plants could be safer and more efficient, but first the US has to figure out how to fuel them up—without relying on Russia.

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If you want to make nuclear fuel, take some of the heavy metallic element and make it into a gas. Then whirl it around in a radioactive tornado, until the lightest particles cluster towards the center. There are some molecule containing a radioactive substance. It can produce energy when it splits. If you do this again and again in a series of cascades, you will have low-enriched uranium, fuel for a traditional nuclear reactor. You will eventually reach high enrichment and possibly have the makings of a bomb if you go long enough.