Inside a highly classified facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — the same facility that enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb in the era of the Manhattan Project — workers are turning old, unexploded warheads into fuel that will power cities.

Until last year, the U.S. relied on Russia to supply this low-enriched fuel. After all, following the Cold War, the former Soviet Union had lots of recently down-blended, weapons-grade uranium to sell and the U.S. was eager to buy.

The US needs HALEU and dismantling nuclear warheads to achieve fuel-grade uranium is an important step in this direction.

Scientists are looking to develop small, modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) that are not just smaller and cheaper to build, they can provide an in situ source of emissions-free electricity. But especially since US president Joe Biden signed a ban on the import of Russian-enriched uranium earlier this year,