One of the least understood features of nuclear power plants is that they consume materials that might otherwise end up in nuclear weapons. Of course, activists that battle the use of nuclear energy generally try to turn that feature into a fault. They have convinced more than a few people that without nuclear power plants, the naturally-occurring material used to produce weapons would not be available.
They neglect the fact that the only two nuclear weapons ever used to harm people were created at least a dozen years before the first electricity producing nuclear reactor.
I wonder how many people really understand that about 10% of the electricity in the United States during the past 20 years has come from decommissioning nuclear weapons and turning the material into heat and elements that will never again be able to fission?
The above clip from Robert Stone’s Pandora’s Promise (hat tip to IndieWire) explains the Megatons to Megawatts program with pictures that speak more loudly than my words can.
