Electronics360: "Driven by data center demands, US nuclear enrichment is resurgent"

Why all this concentration on how to enrich uranium? Yes, enriched U will still be needed for all the thermal reactors already built or building or planning. However, there is a better design called the Generation IV (fast) reactor which utilizes a spectrum of unmoderated fast neutrons as opposed to the moderated (thermal) neutrons in most present-day reactors. These fast reactors will open the door to the use of U-238 and Th. (Thermal reactors require U-235.) Fast reactors have been known since the 1960s, so it is not new and unproven technology. Fast reactors will also use as fuel the highly radioactive long-lived transuranic elements with are a lot of the thermal reactor "waste." This leads to waste that is much smaller in volume and much less radioactive for a shorter time. About 100 times more efficient. Remember that we have an abundance of U-238 left from producing enriched uranium for thermal reactors.