U.S. moves to give Cold War plutoniumCold War plutonium to nuclear start-ups
The Trump administration is advancing a plan to transfer Cold War-era plutonium from dismantled nuclear warheads to selected companies that want to turn it into reactor fuel.
The United States has picked five potential partners, including Oklo, for advanced talks over the project. The plan matters because it could reshape how the U.S. handles weapons material while testing a new path for nuclear power supply.
- The first controlled nuclear chain reaction happened under a Chicago football stadium in 1942.
- Plutonium was first isolated in the Manhattan Project era and became central to early nuclear weapons design.
- Oklo is also the name of a natural reactor that operated in Gabon about two billion years ago.
