Title: Backgrounder On Plutonium | NRC.gov
Headings: Backgrounder on Plutonium
Backgrounder on Plutonium
January 2020

Content: Different uses have been found for plutonium. Plutonium-238 has been used to power batteries for some heart pacemakers, as well as provide a long-lived heat source to power NASA space missions. Like uranium, plutonium can also be used to fuel nuclear power plants. This is done in a few countries but not currently in the United States. Today's light water reactors – used to make commercial power in the United States – create plutonium when the uranium in their fuel fissions. Some of the neutrons released by uranium interact with other uranium atoms to form plutonium. Some of the plutonium itself fissions – part of the chain reaction of splitting atoms that is the basis of nuclear power. Any plutonium that does not fission stays in the spent fuel. Spent nuclear fuel from U.S. reactors contains about 1 percent plutonium by weight. There are many metric tons of plutonium in spent nuclear fuel stored around the world.