Lynn Settles's Profile

Salvaged bomb material now generates about 10 percent of electricity in the
United States — by comparison, hydropower generates about 6 percent and solar,
biomass, wind and geothermal
together account for 3 percent.

Treaties at the end of the cold war led to the decommissioning of thousands
of warheads. Their energy-rich cores are converted into civilian reactor fuel.

The program for dismantling and diluting the fuel cores of decommissioned
Russian warheads — known informally as Megatons to Megawatts — is set to expire
in 2013, just as the industry is trying to sell it forcefully as an alternative
to coal-powered energy plants, which emit greenhouse gases.

Enriching raw uranium is more expensive than converting highly enriched
uranium to fuel grade.