Thank you for reading! Couldn't agree more - it's certainly a stark landscape. It wasn't always this way. Up until 1980, the U.S. was the leading producer of uranium.
We do need more domestic capacity for uranium and enrichment, but I will say some of the alternative avenues for fuel security are quite interesting: downblending weapons, further enriching depleted uranium tails and breeding plutonium.
I'm working to put some simple case studies together for the next essay to contextualize what some of these options would look like.
Thank you for reading! Couldn't agree more - it's certainly a stark landscape. It wasn't always this way. Up until 1980, the U.S. was the leading producer of uranium.
We do need more domestic capacity for uranium and enrichment, but I will say some of the alternative avenues for fuel security are quite interesting: downblending weapons, further enriching depleted uranium tails and breeding plutonium.
I'm working to put some simple case studies together for the next essay to contextualize what some of these options would look like.