Trump plan to give start-ups plutonium is risky

plutonium transfer – Experts and members of Congress are pushing back on a Trump administration plan to offer plutonium recovered from Cold War–era nuclear weapons to private energy companies, warning the move makes little economic sense and would complicate security for material

On paper, the promise sounds like a shortcut: turn Cold War–era plutonium into fuel for the next era of U.S. nuclear power. In practice, experts say, it’s a gamble with two kinds of risk—economic feasibility and national security.

The Trump administration has proposed a plan to offer plutonium from dismantled Cold War–era nuclear weapons to private energy companies. Critics argue the approach doesn’t match today’s U.S. reality. There are currently no operational nuclear reactors in the country built to use plutonium-derived fuel. Instead, U.S. nuclear power plants use a mixture of two uranium isotopes.

In that fuel, a small portion—usually around 5 percent—is uranium 235, which can also be used to make nuclear weapons. The majority is uranium 238, which cannot sustain a nuclear fission reaction on its own. Scott Roecker, vice president of nuclear materials safety at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, describes why that balance matters. If fuel of this type were to fall into the wrong hands. he says. it would be enormously difficult to weaponize.

“The most difficult step in getting a nuclear weapon is having enough of that material,” Roecker says. He adds that the U.S. government has spent “probably billions of dollars over the last several decades” removing highly-enriched uranium and separated plutonium from countries that don’t need it.

Plutonium, unlike uranium, is a human-made element created inside reactors. As uranium 238 is bombarded with neutrons, it absorbs some particles, becomes uranium 239, and rapidly decays into extremely radioactive plutonium. That plutonium can be mixed back with uranium to be used as fuel in specialized reactor types called mixed oxide reactors.

But the United States abandoned mixed oxide reactors in the 1970s because they were both difficult and expensive to run. Mixed oxide reactors do exist in other countries—Japan, Russia, and France—but Roecker points to trouble there too. He says France’s government is subsidizing the process and that “only I think 1 percent of the uranium that’s actually reprocessed is being reused.” In Japan. he says. the program has cost the country billions of dollars and has still not started operation.

The Department of Energy, however, defends the plan by arguing that the private sector could help advance U.S. nuclear power infrastructure. Ted Garrish. assistant secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy. said in April that decommissioned nuclear fuel “represents an immense. untapped energy resource for the United States.”.

A DOE spokesperson later framed the plan as a way to attract funding and drive technological progress. The Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program is “anticipated to help companies unlock the next level of private funding to broaden domestic nuclear fuel supplies. spur innovation on American recycling technologies. and unlock private sector funding to fuel the nation’s nuclear renaissance.” The spokesperson added that five companies have been selected to take part in the program.

Security is where the critics become most blunt. Daniel Speyer. a professor of nuclear power plant systems at New York University. says he is not convinced that energy start-ups could properly store plutonium. Even if the material is mixed back with uranium. he argues. separating the two to isolate highly fissile plutonium is not so difficult as to be impossible—making the security threat clearer.

“It’s not something that a small organization really probably could do, but if you give them plutonium in purer form, I think it’s almost a trivial act to make a bomb,” Speyer says. “A simple atomic bomb is not difficult to make. I think I could make one, actually.”

The DOE says any company selected to receive Cold War–era plutonium must demonstrate a deep understanding of the technology involved, along with robust security plans and regulatory compliance.

The pushback has also moved beyond technical debate and into politics. Last September. Democratic senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts and two Democratic congressional representatives sent a letter to President Donald Trump raising concerns about the risk to national security. They wrote that “The transfer of weapons-usable plutonium to private industry would increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation. including to rogue states or terrorists.”.

The central contradiction sits in the gap between ambition and infrastructure: the U.S. does not currently run reactors designed for plutonium-derived fuel. while the material critics worry about is exactly the kind that governments have spent decades trying to keep out of circulation. As the program moves forward with selected companies and required security assurances. opponents are left pressing the same question in different forms—who benefits. who pays. and what happens if control doesn’t hold.

plutonium mixed oxide reactors Trump administration Department of Energy Nuclear Threat Initiative Scott Roecker Ted Garrish Daniel Speyer nuclear weapons proliferation Edward Markey Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program