The FNR was originally conceived to burn uranium more efficiently and thus extend the world's

uranium resources – it could do this by a factor of about 60. From the outset, nuclear scientists
understood that today's reactors fuelled essentially with U-235 exploited less than one percent of
the energy potentially available from uranium. Early perceptions that those uranium resources
were scarce caused several countries to embark upon extensive FBR development programs.
However significant technical and materials problems were encountered, and also geological
exploration showed by the 1970s that uranium scarcity would not be a concern for some time.
Due to both factors, by the 1980s it was clear that FNRs would not be commercially competitive
with existing light water reactors for some time.
Today there has been progress on the technical front, but the economics of FNRs still depends on
the value of the plutonium fuel which is bred and used, relative to the cost of fresh uranium. Also
there is international concern over the disposal of ex-military plutonium, and there are proposals
to use fast reactors (as 'burners') for this purpose. In both respects the technology is important to
long-term considerations of world energy sustainability.