The US is weighing a new use for some of its deadliest Cold War leftovers. The Energy Department has picked five companies for advanced talks on tapping surplus weapons-grade plutonium from dismantled warheads and turning it into fuel for next-generation nuclear reactors, the New York Times reports. It would be the first time the government grants private firms access to such material. Supporters, including California-based Oklo and its European partner Newcleo, say it is a way to both shrink a surplus stockpile of more than 50 tons and ease a looming fuel crunch for a hoped-for nuclear power buildout.
- "A lack of fuel is one of the biggest choke points in expanding nuclear power right now," says Oklo chief executive Jacob DeWitte. "This will help us get more nuclear power online faster."`
Nonproliferation experts and some Democrats see a different picture. They warn that plutonium's bomb-making potential demands extraordinary safeguards and note that earlier US and foreign efforts to turn it into mixed-oxide fuel ran into massive cost overruns, technical problems, and eventual cancellation. "The transfer of weapons-usable plutonium to private industry would increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, including to rogue states or terrorists," Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts wrote in a letter to President Trump last year. "The United States cannot effectively discourage other countries from using plutonium for civil purposes if we use it ourselves."
The Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program is not yet final; negotiations must still address security, transport, and processing of material that, in some cases, remains locked inside warheads, the Times reports. The companies involved are working on a new generation of small modular reactors that will be smaller and require less upkeep than the large, aging facilities around the US, CNN reports. They are supported by tech companies that will need huge amounts of power for AI data centers.
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