Long dismissed in the U.S. as uneconomic and proliferation-prone, the recycling of used nuclear fuel is becoming a strategic imperative the country can no longer afford to ignore. The U.S. is sitting on roughly 96,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel, the vast majority of which is reusable material rather than waste, even as global uranium demand surges and China races to build dozens of new reactors. Meanwhile, France and Russia dominate the recycling landscape, with Russia increasingly setting the terms for nuclear partnerships with non-allied countries. What do modern recycling technologies actually do, and how do they differ from the legacy processes that raised proliferation concerns decades ago? Why might commercial recycling finally be viable in the U.S. today, what role should the federal government play in a market-based approach, and ca ...