Reporter, writer and analyst. I cover energy, climate change and geopolitics. Contact me via my website www.alexanderckaufman.com and subscribe to kaufman.nyc.

There’s no way we didn’t buy that enriched uranium right? @kaufman I feel like I’d love your POV on my conspiracy

Saying things with my chest 

Recovering people pleaser 


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SUBSTACK / INSTAGRAM

Sooooo what I’m reading is my conspiracy is possible 🤙🏼

Most nuclear reactors run on low enriched uranium which is enriched up to 5%. Some newer next-gen reactors that use coolants other than water use high enriched low assay uranium, or HALEU, which is enriched up to 20%. 

No reactors run on the higher-enriched stuff that is used in bombs, which goes from like 60-90%. But you can take that stuff apart and recycle it into fuel. That's actually a big reason why domestic enrichment capacity went away in the U.S. 

In the 1990s, Bill Clinton did a deal with Russia called "megatons to megawatts," where we bought any nuclear fuel that Moscow made through disassembled weapons. That material ended up being so cheap and plentiful at a time when nuclear power was on the decline anyway that the domestic enrichers largely went out of business.

This is showing my ignorance. Can that be used for nuclear reactors for energy? Thats the angle I’m seeing. For data centers

my money would be on the Chinese getting it, or maybe the Russians. And given that we still buy lots of Russian fuel I guess I could see an American interest ultimately getting it by proxy