I’ve always thought of nuclear waste as a thinly veiled euphemism for Plutonium. Plutonium is an unavoidable product of U235 fission - and can be extracted fro

I’ve always thought of nuclear waste as a thinly veiled euphemism for Plutonium. Plutonium is an unavoidable product of U235 fission - and can be extracted from the resulting “nuclear waste” by chemical processes. Having seen stuxnet, I’m convinced that there’s a lot of investment in preventing people from gaining access to U238. Starting from Uranium ore, getting to Plutonium would be much simpler than getting to sufficient quantities of U238 and have the benefit of generating energy along the way. Additionally, Plutonium based bombs have a “higher yield” according to what I’ve read. I wonder if USA and Russia agreed to limit Plutonium production- and that’s the real reason behind severely limiting nuclear energy.