America has nuclear plants that “partially consume” fuel rods.
These can be recycled and used again (this is called reprocessing).
Nuclear fuel rods whose energy is “partially consumed” still contain a lot of radioactive material.
So, recycling them makes sense.
Except … there are no fuel rod reprocessors in the U.S.
And the reason is … wait for it … because reprocessing creates an opportunity for diverting nuclear fuel into weapons.
You read that correctly; we’re not reprocessing because nuclear fuel might be diverted, so we let other people do it for us in other countries.
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