During President Trump’s recent U.K. trip he signed a deal that will turbocharge nuclear reactor development in both countries. But there’s a paradox. While the administration is working with London to accelerate the production of new plants, the U.S. is simultaneously destroying its own stock of uranium-233, otherwise known as U-233.
Shockingly, the elimination of this essential asset for nuclear reactors has been occurring for two decades. It’s the relic of fear-driven policies from a bygone era. To lead, America must immediately stop this self-inflicted constraint on its capacity to compete.
President Trump met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer and signed a nuclear power pact in an effort to jointly lead the world in nuclear energy technology. The agreement, billed as The Atlantic Partnership for Advanced Nuclear Energy, envisions a fleet of 12 advanced modular reactors in northeast England. The fleet will use American technology and supply chains to bring dependable, emissions-free power online faster than any of today’s bespoke megaprojects.
Notably, nuclear energy, once taboo in polite society barely a decade ago, has become the favored energy solution of policymakers. That’s namely because the energy demands of an AI-driven economy won’t wait. Data centers are multiplying and the power required to run them is rising accordingly. Researchers estimate global data center electricity use will roughly double by 2030 on an already strained power grid. Both Washington and Westminster seem to recognize that only dense, reliable, round-the-clock power can underwrite a digital future without throttling growth or outsourcing emissions.
Yet while the U.S. is partnering with allies abroad in this nuclear revolution, we are sabotaging ourselves at home. The U.S. has spent decades decimating U-233 by downblending the isotope, the indispensable key for next-generation nuclear designs. It serves as the scarce “starter” super fuel to unlock the potential for thorium, a highly abundant byproduct of rare-earth-mineral mining, as the future of safer, cheaper, and far more efficient nuclear energy. In short, U-233 is the key that turns multiple locks.
Consider what’s at stake. China now leads the pack in advanced nuclear, pioneering the most sophisticated molten-salt thorium pilot. India is close behind with breeder pathways that produce and use U-233. Beijing also sits near vast thorium reserves, including major finds that could fuel reactors for generations. But thorium’s abundance is only potential until it is sparked by U-233. Simply, without it, the fuel remains a stranded asset.
Interestingly, China has an abundance of thorium, but lacks enough U-233 to unleash its full potential. America, however, has both large thorium resources and a substantial U-233 stockpile produced during mid-20th-century research programs. No other nation holds a comparably significant stockpile of U-233. The U.S. produced most of it in the 1960s, then mothballed the program amid Cold War anxieties and a regulatory turn against anything that sounded exotic or indirectly tied to nuclear weaponry. Today, as others figure out how to make U-233 at great cost and difficulty, we are literally throwing away the world’s most valuable nuclear option.
The downblending policy is an artifact of outmoded thinking that reflexively conflated “advanced” with “unsafe.” In the past few decades, materials science, safety protocols, and monitoring have progressed by leaps and bounds, eliminating the once-feared risk of meltdown and making nuclear a stable, resilient form of energy. Passive safety is engineered into nuclear reactors that shut themselves down if there is any sign of risk, without operator action or external power. And costs have substantially come down as the U.S. leads the world in small modular reactor development.
Using the U-233 we already have is the fastest way to become energy-dominant and win the AI race. With our current stockpile, the U.S. can spearhead advanced-nuclear research, accelerate reactor licensing, and bolster domestic supply chains around parts and processes we control. That is how to de-risk technology, by unleashing innovation and making “advanced” nuclear reliable, affordable, and normal.
Credibility starts at home. If President Trump wants to be the vanguard of a transatlantic renaissance in nuclear energy, he should follow the U.K. accord with a domestic pivot. The U.S. should halt U-233 down-blending immediately, inventory and secure the stockpile, and set up a transparent pathway to place it in qualified reactors and research programs. Alabama has made strides in this direction, but much more needs to be done at the federal level. These decisions would show allies we intend to deliver.
The Atlantic Partnership is a welcome step in the right direction. But the U.S. needs leadership that both makes way for the future and corrects misdirection from the past. These decisions will determine whether America prospers or declines, beginning with the recognition that current policy is deeply harmful to the national interest. Stop destroying U-233. Use it instead to propel advanced reactors and supercharge the emerging AI economy with clean, abundant power.
Julia R. Cartwright is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.
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