U.S. Seeks to Give Weapons-Grade Plutonium to Startups for Fuel

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/climate/plutonium-nuclear-weapons-fuel.html

Comments

aduffyMay 26, 2026, 9:10 PM
Move fast and meltdown
kylehotchkissMay 26, 2026, 7:55 PM
Iran war negotiations speed run: Iran becomes startup, nuclear material is now granted for startup purposes, we can get our navy out of there. Brilliant.
tim-tdayMay 26, 2026, 6:47 PM
WTF
EA-3167May 26, 2026, 7:06 PM
TFA goes into some detail, with the alternative being dilution and burial. Meanwhile dilution and sale to private reactors seems far more useful given the energy that went into creating that PU in the first place, and the good it could do as fuel.

It's literally swords into plowshares, what's the problem other than the fact that the word "Plutonium" gives people hives?

helpfulfrondMay 26, 2026, 9:01 PM
Trusting startups to dispose of it properly if they go bankrupt seems like an absolute disaster waiting to happen. Netflix has/had an interesting series "radioactive emergency" based on real events that seems to be a fairly plausible outcome. The "Goiânia accident in Brazil occurred on September 13, 1987".
EA-3167May 26, 2026, 10:19 PM
The US is significantly more developed and less locally corrupt than Brazil, never mind Brazil in the 1980s.
helpfulfrondMay 26, 2026, 11:35 PM
I still don't trust failing startups to handle radioactive waste properly.
EA-3167May 27, 2026, 1:57 AM
Trust isn’t a factor, regulations and DOE control are. You also seem to be really overestimating the amount of fissile material any one facility will have at any given time.
PearlRiverMay 26, 2026, 10:02 PM
Practically every time a corporation ends up polluting the environment the government ends up paying for it.
helpfulfrondMay 26, 2026, 11:35 PM
Which seems like a good reason not to hand out a bunch of nuclear material...
throwaway81523May 26, 2026, 7:17 PM
1) Pu is incredibly toxic

2) You can make nuclear bombs out of it. If it's too diluted, you can purify it with normal chemical processes and then make your bombs. It's not like uranium where you need a monstrously expensive isotope separation process to get the fissionables out.

3) Even if ransomware gangs don't get their hands on the Pu, billionaire tech bros with nukes sounds dystopian enough in its own right.

4) Even ignoring the weapons proliferation aspect, startups building Pu-fueled power reactors seems like a dumb idea. Thorium-molten salt may be a little harder but holds lots of promise. It's being built in China now.

jjk166May 26, 2026, 8:40 PM
> If it's too diluted, you can purify it with normal chemical processes and then make your bombs. It's not like uranium where you need a monstrously expensive isotope separation process to get the fissionables out.

While technically it is possible to separate plutonium out chemically, it is extremely difficult to do in practice. Plutonium separation plants are more expensive than uranium enrichment plants, and that's the reason states pursuing clandestine nuclear weapons programs choose uranium enrichment over plutonium. Uranium enrichment was much more expensive in the 40s and 50s when the US built up its plutonium production infrastructure, all of which was shut down in the 80s. Modern centrifuges make uranium enrichment cheap and simple, and the only economical source of plutonium is dismantled nuclear weapons.

ianburrellMay 26, 2026, 8:56 PM
You are missing that there is weapons grade plutonium with only Pu239 and reactor grade with some Pu240. The Pu240 spoils the fission reaction. Reactor grade might be usuable for bombs, but then all spent fuel is a problem.

Mix some weapons grade and reactor grade plutonium and end up with reactor grade that can't be used. Reactor grade plutonium already gets used in reactors.

EA-3167May 26, 2026, 8:39 PM
PU is toxic, but hardly uniquely toxic. All of the "UPPU" guys from the old days died of natural causes at a ripe old age so clearly mild exposure is no death sentence. As far as proliferation goes I'm not sure how... ransomware gangs are going to switch to presumably armed interdiction and extraction of highly sensitive nuclear material. As a country we manage quite a lot of nuclear material and so far your scenario hasn't come to pass.

So yes there certainly are downsides to anything involving nuclear energy, just like there are downsides to fossil fuels, or the toxic heavy metals so often involved in "green" energy. The upside of nuclear energy is a lack of emissions after the initial construction, minimal mining to support it compared to other options, long working lifetimes and high efficiency.

But people love to focus on Hollywood inspired nightmare scenarios.

LargoLasskhyfvMay 26, 2026, 7:36 PM
But imagine 2D-metamaterialized twisted-angle plutonium! Pure Stargatium!

Bzzzt...…

cboyardeeMay 26, 2026, 7:00 PM
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