Megatons to Megawatts (1993-2013)
programNations & Geopolitics
A program that turned Russian nuclear warheads into US electricity — and quietly made America dependent on Russia for fuel.
Who they are
Megatons to Megawatts, a US-Russia program that ran from 1993 to 2013.
What they do
It converted weapons-grade uranium from dismantled Russian warheads into fuel for US commercial nuclear plants.
How it works
For two decades it supplied about half of all US commercial nuclear fuel, which was cheap enough that America let its own uranium-enrichment industry wither — creating today's dependence on Russia's Tenex for advanced reactor fuel.
Why it matters
The engine holds several readings at once: it was a genuine disarmament success, yet that same success created a lasting supply-chain dependency by letting cheap foreign fuel erode domestic capacity.
The engine's record — word for word
Post-Cold-War US-Russia program down-blending Russian warhead HEU into commercial LEU; supplied ~half of US commercial nuclear fuel for two decades while atrophying domestic enrichment — the origin of Western HALEU supply-chain path-dependency on Tenex. Apex (a) intentional non-proliferation win that created dependency; (b) structural cheap-fuel-erodes-domestic-capacity dynamic; (c) compound-null: a successful disarmament program — all load-bearing.
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