The nuclear reactor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is small and not particularly powerful, with a core no bigger than a dormitory refrigerator and operating power one six-hundredth that of an average power reactor. Compared with its commercial counterparts, it is so unimposing that some nuclear scientists call it a “Micky Mouse reactor.”
But its fuel is weapons-grade uranium, a crucial ingredient in the making of nuclear bombs. If the fuel were ever stolen, it could be used in a nuclear weapon.