War of words ensues over proliferation warnings on enriched nuclear fuel

The American Nuclear Society (ANS) has written an open letter highlighting its concerns over a policy article published in Science on the weapons potential of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU). In the article, published in June, nuclear scientists warned that governments and others promoting the use of HALEU for nuclear power had not considered the potential terrorism risk that widespread adoption of this fuel would create.¹

HALEU is a nuclear reactor fuel enriched with uranium-235 to 5–20%. At 20% uranium-235 and above the mix­ture is called highly-en­riched uranium (HEU) and it is internationally recognised that it can be employed in nuclear weapons.